Bryantolepis
Bryantolepis is an extinct genus of arthrodire placoderm fish from the Early Devonian period found in northern USA, and currently consists of two species, Bryantolepis brachycephala and Bryantolepis williamsi. The genus is known from multiple parts of the skull roof, the suborbital, endocranium, and trunk shield.

SeismicShrimp · 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
- ActinolepididaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Arthrodira
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Arthrodira
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthrodira
Time the record covers
At most 18 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 410.62 Mya and 393.47 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
6 occurrences of Bryantolepis on record, most of them in the Devonian. 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- Devonian100%
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
2 formations
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The named rock units Bryantolepis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Bryantolepis and its relatives
DevonianWhere Bryantolepis and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.
Found in the same rock
51 taxa- Bryantonchus peracutus3 sites
- Ptychodictyon americanum2 sites
- <Morphotype I>1 site
- <Morphotype II>1 site
- <Trimerophyte>1 site
- Aethaspis major1 site
- Aethaspis utahensis1 site
- Allocryptaspis1 site
- Allocryptaspis elliptica1 site
- Allocryptaspis utahensis1 site
- Anarthraspis chamberlini1 site
- Anarthraspis montanus1 site
- Apiculatisporis1 site
- Apiculiretusispora1 site
- Blieckaspis priscillae1 site
- Broeggeria1 site
- Bulbocanthus rugosus1 site
- Cacheacanthus utahensis1 site
- Camptaspis utahensis1 site
- Cardipeltis wallacii1 site
- Cephalaspis1 site
- Chomotriletes1 site
- Cyrtaspidichthys ovata1 site
- Cyrtaspidichthys sculpta1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Bryantolepis, 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
3 references- A Fossil Flora from the Beartooth Butte Formation of Northern Wyoming4
- A New Species of Bryantolepis Camp, Welles, and Green, 1949 (Placodermi, Arthrodira) from the Early Devonian Water Canyon Formation of Northern Utah and Southern Idaho1
- The Devonian vertebrates of Utah, Part 3 ARTHRODIRA1
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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Bryantolepis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- SeismicShrimp
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Bryantolepis 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
- 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 itActinolepididae through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Denison 1958