Cochliodontiformes
Cochliodontiformes are an order of extinct holocephalans known from the Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian periods. Members of the order are believed to be durophagous benthic carnivores.

Agassiz, 1838 · 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
- CochliodontomorphaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB
Time the record covers
At least 104 million years on record.
The record covers at least 358.86 Mya to 254.14 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 419.62 Mya to 251.902 Mya.
111 occurrences of Cochliodontiformes 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
111 occurrences- Devonian2%
- Carboniferous70%
- Permian28%
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
25 formations
- Khuff Formation7
- Chhidru Formation5
- Ichinotani Formation5
- Phosphoria Formation5
- Watahomigi Formation · Supai Group4
- Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation4
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The named rock units Cochliodontiformes has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. One further formation holds fewer occurrences and is not listed. 57 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Cochliodontiformes and its relatives
CarboniferousWhere Cochliodontiformes and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.
Found in the same rock
604 taxa- Deltodus8 sites
- Deltodus mercurei8 sites
- Glikmanius occidentalis7 sites
- Cochliodontidae6 sites
- Glikmanius myachkovensis6 sites
- Petalodus6 sites
- Petalodus acuminatus6 sites
- Pleuroplax rankinei6 sites
- Psephodus6 sites
- Psephodus magnus6 sites
- Glikmanius culmenis5 sites
- Gunnellodus bellistriatus5 sites
- Paecilodus jonesii5 sites
- Petalodus ohioensis5 sites
- Platyxystrodus striatus5 sites
- Ctenoptychius apicalis4 sites
- Euphemites indicus4 sites
- Omanoselache angiolinii4 sites
- Petalodus allegheniensis4 sites
- Strepsodus sauroides4 sites
- Acanthodes wardi3 sites
- Amelacanthus sulcatus3 sites
- Chondrichthyes3 sites
- Cleiothyridina capillata3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 70 sites for Cochliodontiformes, 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
34 references- Catalogue of the Fossil Fishes in the British Museum (Natural History) Part 127
- A synopsis of the classification of the British Palaeozoic rocks, with a systematic description of the British Palaeozoic fossils.Fasciculus 3, Mollusca and Palaeozoic fishes13
- A new diverse shark fauna from the Wordian (Middle Permian) Khuff Formation in the interior Haushi-Huqf area, Sultanate of Oman7
- Carboniferous fishes from the central western States7
- The chondrichthyan tooth remains from the Carboniferous and Permian of Fukuji, Gifu Prefecture, central Japan5
- The Lower Embar of Wyoming and Its Fauna5
- Productus Limestone Fossils, Part I5
- The Supai Group of the Grand Canyon4
- Fish Remains from the North Wales Coalfield4
- Chondrichthyans from the Pennsylvanian (Desmoinesian) Naco Formation of Central Arizona3
- Productus Limestone Fossils, Part II3
- Permian chondrichthyans from the Guadalupe Mountains National Park of West Texas (USA)2
Each of the 111 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. 22 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 Cochliodontiformes
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Agassiz, 1838
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Cochliodontiformes 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 itCochliodontomorpha through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Obruchev 1953