Bransonella

Bransonella is an extinct genus of marine xenacanth which lived during the Paleozoic era. It is known only from teeth which are easily distinguished from related genera by ornamentation on the cusp shaped like an inverted "V" and fin spines Teeth attributed to this genus are small, no greater than 2 millimeters. This suggests a small body size likely not exceeding a meter in length. It has been suggested their lifestyle was similar to modern catsharks, eating trilobites, crustaceans, gastropods and occasionally small fish. It was used to erect a new order along with Barbclabornia based on ornamentation.

Bransonella

Oliver Hampe and Alexander Ivanov · 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
BransonelliformesPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Chondrichthyes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Chondrichthyes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Chondrichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 72 million years on record.

The record covers at least 346.7 Mya to 274.4 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 358.86 Mya to 266.9 Mya.

Devonian — about 0 of 16 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 10 of 16 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 6 of 16 occurrencesPermian361–358 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences358–354 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences354–351 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences351–348 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences348–345 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences345–342 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences342–338 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences338–335 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences335–332 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences332–329 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences326–322 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences322–319 Mya — about 2 occurrences319–316 Mya — about 2 occurrences316–313 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences313–310 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences310–307 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences307–303 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences303–300 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences300–297 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences294–291 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences291–287 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences284–281 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences281–278 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences278–275 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences275–271 Mya — about 1 occurrence271–268 Mya — about 1 occurrence268–265 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences346.7 Mya274.4 Mya361 Mya265 Mya

16 occurrences of Bransonella on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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

16 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

8 formations

Kaibab — 35.10°N, 111.69°WKaibab — 35.16°N, 111.67°WBlack Prince Limestone — 31.77°N, 109.58°WQianheishan — 36.56°N, 104.68°EFunston Limestone — 39.05°N, 96.75°WJohns Valley — 34.50°N, 95.63°WFoldedal — 80.62°N, 15.50°WBoggy — 34.43°N, 96.96°WCutoff / Brushy Canyon — 31.83°N, 104.86°W

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The named rock units Bransonella has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Bransonella and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Bransonella and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

77 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Bransonella, 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

10 references

Each of the 16 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. 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 Bransonella

Credit
Oliver Hampe and Alexander Ivanov
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Bransonella was found in Sketchfab.

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 itBransonelliformes through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Harlton 1933