Caridosuctor populosum

Caridosuctor is an extinct genus of marine coelacanth that lived during the Carboniferous period. It contains a single species, C. populusum, with fossils known from the Bear Gulch Limestone in Montana. It is the largest and most common coelacanth known from Bear Gulch, reaching a body length of 21.7 centimetres (8.5 in). In a 1985 study in which the species was nicknamed "long body", it was suggested to be a slow cruising predator with stomach contents indicating that its diet included fish and crustaceans and was probably an environmental generalist.

Caridosuctor populosum

Haplochromis · 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
CaridosuctorPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At most 3.3 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 326.9 Mya and 323.6 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Carboniferous — about 4 of 4 occurrencesCarboniferous327–327 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences327–327 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences327–327 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences327–326 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences326–326 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences326–326 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences326–326 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences326–326 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences326–326 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences326–326 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences326–325 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences325–325 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences325–325 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences325–325 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences325–325 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences325–325 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences325–325 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences325–324 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences324–324 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences324–324 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences324–324 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences324–324 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences324–324 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences324–324 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences327.4 Mya323.1 Mya

4 occurrences of Caridosuctor populosum 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

4 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

1 formation

Heath — 46.95°N, 108.96°W

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

Caridosuctor populosum and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Caridosuctor populosum and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

37 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Caridosuctor populosum, 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

2 references

Each of the 4 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 Caridosuctor populosum

Credit
Haplochromis
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Caridosuctor populosum 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 itCaridosuctor through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lund and Lund 1984