Besania

Besania is an extinct genus of prehistoric marine ray-finned fish that lived during the Anisian and Ladinian ages of the Middle Triassic epoch in what is now southern/southeastern Switzerland and northern Italy. Fossils were recovered from the Besano Formation of Monte San Giorgio area and the Prosanto Formation of canton Graubünden, Switzerland.

Besania

Ghedoghedo · 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
LuganoiidaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At most 4 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 243.43 Mya and 239.48 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Middle Triassic — about 6 of 6 occurrencesMiddle Triassic243–243 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences243–243 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences243–243 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences243–243 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences243–243 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences243–242 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences242–242 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences242–242 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences242–242 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences242–242 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences242–242 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences242–241 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences241–241 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences241–241 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences241–241 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences241–241 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences241–241 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences241–240 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences240–240 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences240–240 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences240–240 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences240–240 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences240–240 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences240–239 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences243.93 Mya238.98 Mya

6 occurrences of Besania on record, most of them in the Middle Triassic. 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

6 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

3 formations

Besano — 45.89°N, 8.90°EProsanto — 46.68°N, 9.82°EProsanto — 46.69°N, 9.71°ECassina — 45.91°N, 8.95°E

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The named rock units Besania has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Besania and its relatives

Middle Triassic

Where Besania and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Triassic.

Found in the same rock

49 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Besania, 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

4 references

Each of the 6 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Besania

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
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 itLuganoiidae through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Brough 1939