Boreosomus

Boreosomus is an extinct genus of Triassic marine ray-finned fish. It was first described from the Arctic island of Spitsbergen, hence its genus name, but was later also discovered in other parts of the world. The type species is Boreosomus arcticus.

Boreosomus

Uncredited · CC BY-SA 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
PtycholepididaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 11 million years on record.

The record covers at least 251.1 Mya to 239.48 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 251.902 Mya to 237 Mya.

Permian — about 0 of 37 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 29 of 37 occurrencesEarly TriassicMiddle Triassic — about 8 of 37 occurrencesMiddle TriassicLate Triassic — about 0 of 37 occurrences252–252 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences252–251 Mya — about 3 occurrences251–251 Mya — about 10 occurrences251–250 Mya — about 3 occurrences250–250 Mya — about 3 occurrences250–249 Mya — about 3 occurrences249–249 Mya — about 3 occurrences249–248 Mya — about 2 occurrences248–248 Mya — about 1 occurrence248–247 Mya — about 1 occurrence247–247 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences247–246 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences246–246 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences246–245 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences245–244 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences244–244 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences242–241 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences241–241 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences241–240 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences240–240 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences240–239 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences239–239 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences239–238 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences238–238 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences238–237 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences237–237 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences251.1 Mya239.48 Mya252.4 Mya236.5 Mya

37 occurrences of Boreosomus on record, most of them in the Early 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

37 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

11 formations

Kongressfjellet — 78.24°N, 17.21°EKongressfjellet — 78.28°N, 17.63°EKongressfjellet — 78.57°N, 15.32°EKongressfjellet — 78.62°N, 14.43°EMuschelkalk — 41.27°N, 1.12°EMoenkopi — 34.92°N, 110.26°WSulphur Mountain — 54.53°N, 120.74°WSticky Keep — 78.34°N, 16.30°EHongyanjing — 41.95°N, 96.53°ESpray River — 54.54°N, 120.79°WVardebukta — 77.03°N, 16.21°EMiddle Sakamena — 13.51°S, 49.07°EDaye — 26.51°N, 106.87°ESulphur Mountain Formation — 54.57°N, 120.78°W

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The named rock units Boreosomus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 22 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Boreosomus and its relatives

Early Triassic

Where Boreosomus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Triassic.

Found in the same rock

210 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 35 sites for Boreosomus, 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

16 references

Each of the 37 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. 4 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 content2

Picture of Boreosomus

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

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 itPtycholepididae through timeFormations of the Early TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Stensiö 1921