Cetorhinidae

Cetorhinidae is a family of filter feeding mackerel sharks, whose members are commonly known as basking sharks. It includes the extant basking shark, Cetorhinus, as well as three extinct genera, Pseudocetorhinus, Caucasochasma and Keasius.

Cetorhinidae

Green Fire Productions · CC BY 2.0 · 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
Also called
basking sharkPBDB
Sits inside
LamniformesPBDB
Diet
suspension feeder, carnivorePBDB
Life habit
nektonicPBDB
Motility
fast-movingPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 201 million years on record.

The record covers at least 201.4 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 205.7 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Late Triassic — about 10 of 183 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 183 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 183 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 183 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 183 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 183 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 183 occurrencesEocene — about 6 of 183 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 68 of 183 occurrencesMiocene — about 77 of 183 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 16 of 183 occurrencesPleistocene — about 6 of 183 occurrences210–203 Mya — about 7 occurrences203–196 Mya — about 3 occurrences42–35 Mya — about 5 occurrences35–28 Mya — about 53 occurrences28–21 Mya — about 20 occurrences21–14 Mya — about 47 occurrences14–7.0 Mya — about 24 occurrences7.0–0 Mya — about 24 occurrences201.4 Mya129 ka210 Mya0 Mya

183 occurrences of Cetorhinidae on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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

183 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

60 formations

Boom Clay — 51.19°N, 4.32°EBoom Clay — 51.13°N, 4.26°EBoom Clay — 51.12°N, 4.35°EBoom Clay — 51.16°N, 4.13°EBreda — 51.18°N, 6.44°EBreda — 51.58°N, 6.25°EBreda — 51.81°N, 6.56°EBreda — 51.66°N, 6.45°EBerchem — 51.20°N, 4.44°EBerchem — 51.08°N, 4.73°EBerchem — 51.19°N, 4.47°EAstoria — 43.36°N, 124.31°WAstoria — 44.72°N, 124.06°WAstoria — 46.27°N, 123.68°WCalvert — 38.17°N, 76.81°WCalvert — 38.53°N, 76.52°WPurisima — 37.29°N, 122.41°WAlzey — 49.82°N, 7.82°EAlzey — 49.74°N, 8.09°EAlzey — 49.79°N, 7.91°EAlzey — 49.79°N, 7.98°EMenilite — 49.49°N, 17.79°EMenilite — 49.20°N, 17.20°EMenilite — 49.41°N, 17.75°EYamaga — 33.99°N, 130.82°EBreda — 52.15°N, 6.61°EBreda — 51.47°N, 5.80°EBreda — 51.97°N, 6.72°EKeasey — 45.77°N, 123.24°WKeasey — 46.00°N, 123.26°WKeasey — 45.85°N, 123.19°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.60°N, 117.88°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.75°N, 118.29°WBoom — 51.08°N, 4.40°ELower Mica Finesand — 54.15°N, 10.52°ELower Mica Finesand — 53.92°N, 10.83°ELower Mica Finesand — 53.85°N, 10.93°ERound Mountain Silt — 35.46°N, 118.92°WRound Mountain Silt — 35.44°N, 118.90°WGram — 55.31°N, 9.06°EGram — 55.28°N, 9.00°EOosterhout — 51.70°N, 5.73°ETemblor — 35.47°N, 118.91°WBodenheim — 49.98°N, 8.27°EBodenheim — 49.96°N, 7.91°EGrafenberg — 51.23°N, 6.47°EGrafenberg — 51.34°N, 6.59°EKattendijk — 51.26°N, 4.27°EEbelsberg — 48.24°N, 13.99°ENeuhofen — 48.50°N, 14.28°EWestbury — 51.60°N, 2.61°WWestbury — 51.18°N, 3.38°W

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The named rock units Cetorhinidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 36 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 36 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Cetorhinidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Cetorhinidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

2,419 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 179 sites for Cetorhinidae, 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

79 references

Each of the 183 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. 67 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 content1

Picture of Cetorhinidae

Credit
Green Fire Productions
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Cetorhinidae 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 itLamniformes through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gill 1862