Ammonitina
Ammonitina comprises a diverse suborder of ammonite cephalopods that lived during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods of the Mesozoic Era. They are excellent index fossils, and it is often possible to link the rock layer in which they are found to specific geological time periods.

Dlloyd · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- AmmonitidaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Ammonoidea
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Ammonoidea
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Ammonoidea
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda
Time the record covers
At least 127 million years on record.
The record covers at least 199.5 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 205.7 Mya to 61.66 Mya.
12,000+ occurrences of Ammonitina on record. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
12,000 occurrences read- Late Triassicunder 1%
- Early Jurassic27%
- Middle Jurassic12%
- Late Jurassic13%
- Early Cretaceous32%
- Late Cretaceous16%
- Paleoceneunder 1%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. The read hit its cap, so every figure above is a floor and the shares are of the occurrences read. More on what this infers.
Found in
at least 447 formations
- Jurensismergel Formation485
- Fannin Formation · Maude Group375
- Grès verts helvétiques Formation374
- Whiteaves Formation · Maude Group348
- Spatsizi Formation · Hazelton Group277
- Nishinakayama Formation · Toyora Group234
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The named rock units Ammonitina has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. The read hit its cap, so each count is a floor. 423 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 3,797 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
1,015 taxa- Barremites66 sites
- Phyllopachyceras infundibulum56 sites
- Karsteniceras34 sites
- Phylloceras (Hypophylloceras) ponticuli33 sites
- Holcodiscus27 sites
- Anahamulina26 sites
- Subpulchellia24 sites
- Deshayesites21 sites
- Exogyra17 sites
- Cheloniceras16 sites
- Bryozoa14 sites
- Dissimilites14 sites
- Panopea14 sites
- Pulchellia (Heinzia)14 sites
- Resatrix14 sites
- Tropaeum14 sites
- Douvilleiceras mammillatum13 sites
- Lytoceras13 sites
- Spitidiscus13 sites
- Haplobrancoceras subquadratum12 sites
- Protetragonites crebrisulcatus12 sites
- Toxancyloceras vandenheckii12 sites
- Biplica isoplicata11 sites
- Cheloniceras cornuelianum11 sites
The Paleobiology Database records at least 771 sites for Ammonitina, and this reads 240 of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
at least 460 references- Toarcian (Early Jurassic) ammonoids from western North America671
- Les grès verts helvétiques (Aptien moyen-Albien supérieur) de Haute-Savoie, Valais et Vaud (Alpes occidentales franco-suisses)500
- Pliensbachian (Lower Jurassic) ammonites of the Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia497
- Lower Barremian ammonite biostratigraphy in the Subbetic Domain (Betic Cordillera, southern Spain)409
- Les ammonites du Sinémurien et du Pliensbachien inférieur de la montagne du Bakony (Hongrie)391
- Early Jurassic Bivalvia of western Canada. Part I. Subclasses Palaeotaxodonta, Pteriomorpha, and Isofilibranchia310
- The stratigraphical palaeontology of the Lower Greensand289
- Die Ammonitenfauna und Stratigraphie der Tongrube Mistelgau bei Bayreuth (Oberfranken)283
- L'Oxfordien dans la moitié sud du Jura francais - etude stratigraphique281
- Die Grenzziehung Unter-/Mitteljura (Toarcium/Aalenium) bei Wittnau und Fuentelsaz [Determinig the boundary between Toarcium/Aalenium near Wittnau and Fuentelsaz]256
- La succession des faunes dans le Callovien Francais, essais de corrélation à l'échelle de la zone237
- Early Jurrasic Macrofauna of the Oxygen-Depleted Epicontinental Marin Basin in the Toyora Area, West Japan234
Each of the 12,000 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. That read hit its cap, so each count is a floor. 448 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Ammonitina
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Dlloyd
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Ammonitina was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Ammonitina”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itAmmonitida through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hyatt 1889