Belemnobatis

Belemnobatis is an extinct genus of rays from the Late Jurassic. It has been regarded as related to other Jurassic rays in the family Asterodermidae. It is possible this genus is a wastebasket taxon. It is known from many sites of both Jurassic and Cretaceous age throughout Europe and a single Asian occurrence in the middle Jurassic of Thailand.

Belemnobatis

J. Türtscher, P. L. Jambura, E. Villalobos-Segura, F. A. López-Romero, C. J. Underwood, D. Thies, B. Lauer, R. Lauer,… · CC BY 4.0 · 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
BelemnobatidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Chondrichthyes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Chondrichthyes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Chondrichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 55 million years on record.

The record covers at least 174.7 Mya to 119.57 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 184.2 Mya to 113.2 Mya.

Early Jurassic — about 1 of 21 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 4 of 21 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 3 of 21 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 13 of 21 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous186–183 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences183–181 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences181–178 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences178–176 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences176–173 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences173–171 Mya — about 1 occurrence168–166 Mya — about 2 occurrences166–163 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences159–156 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences156–154 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences154–151 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences151–149 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences144–141 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences141–139 Mya — about 1 occurrence139–136 Mya — about 4 occurrences136–134 Mya — about 2 occurrences134–131 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences127–124 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences124–122 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences122–119 Mya — about 3 occurrences119–117 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences117–114 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences114–112 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences174.7 Mya119.57 Mya186 Mya112 Mya

21 occurrences of Belemnobatis on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. 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

21 occurrences

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. More on what this infers.

Found in

7 formations

Durlston — 50.60°N, 1.95°WDurlston — 50.62°N, 2.25°WSot de Chera — 41.12°N, 0.83°WSpeeton Clay — 54.15°N, 0.17°WFrome Clay — 51.85°N, 0.10°WFullers Earth — 50.75°N, 2.33°WLiegende Bankkalk — 48.12°N, 8.87°EAtherfield Clay — 51.23°N, 0.25°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Belemnobatis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 9 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Belemnobatis and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Belemnobatis and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

137 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 20 sites for Belemnobatis, and this reads all 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

13 references

Each of the 21 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. 1 further reference is 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 Belemnobatis

Credit
J. Türtscher, P. L. Jambura, E. Villalobos-Segura, F. A. López-Romero, C. J. Underwood, D. Thies, B. Lauer, R. Lauer,…
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

The description on this site

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 itBelemnobatidae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Thiollière 1854