Cymatoceras

Cymatoceras is a wide-ranging extinct genus from the nautilitacean cephalopod family, Cymatoceratidae. They lived from the Late Jurassic to Late Oligocene, roughly from 155 to 23 Ma.

Cymatoceras

Uncredited · 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
NautilidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Nautilidae
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Nautilidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Nautilidae
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
Environment
marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda

Time the record covers

At least 118 million years on record.

The record covers at least 152.21 Mya to 33.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 154.8 Mya to 27.3 Mya.

Late Jurassic — about 2 of 284 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 181 of 284 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 100 of 284 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 284 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 284 occurrencesOligocene — about 1 of 284 occurrences157–153 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences153–149 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences149–144 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences144–140 Mya — about 2 occurrences140–135 Mya — about 5 occurrences135–131 Mya — about 15 occurrences131–126 Mya — about 25 occurrences126–122 Mya — about 28 occurrences122–118 Mya — about 32 occurrences118–113 Mya — about 23 occurrences113–109 Mya — about 15 occurrences109–104 Mya — about 18 occurrences104–100 Mya — about 22 occurrences100–95 Mya — about 20 occurrences95–91 Mya — about 19 occurrences91–87 Mya — about 8 occurrences87–82 Mya — about 9 occurrences82–78 Mya — about 7 occurrences78–73 Mya — about 7 occurrences73–69 Mya — about 16 occurrences69–65 Mya — about 12 occurrences38–34 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences34–29 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences29–25 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences152.21 Mya33.9 Mya157 Mya25 Mya

284 occurrences of Cymatoceras on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. 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

284 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

54 formations

Aurora Limestone — 26.42°N, 103.25°WEssener Grünsand — 51.45°N, 7.02°EEssener Grünsand — 51.54°N, 7.70°ERio Mayer — 47.81°S, 71.96°WRio Mayer — 48.16°S, 70.35°WRio Mayer — 47.43°S, 71.96°WRio Mayer — 49.37°S, 71.67°WRio Mayer — 49.11°S, 71.78°WHythe — 51.08°N, 1.18°EHythe — 51.28°N, 0.53°EHythe — 51.25°N, 0.07°WAtherfield Clay — 50.60°N, 1.32°WAtherfield Clay — 50.61°N, 1.36°WAgrio — 37.73°S, 70.22°WAgrio — 38.15°S, 69.79°WPabellon — 27.50°S, 70.25°WPabellon — 27.83°S, 70.33°WWest Melbury Marly Chalk — 51.08°N, 1.18°EWest Melbury Marly Chalk — 50.59°N, 1.24°WKraznoyarka — 48.28°N, 142.49°EKraznoyarka — 47.32°N, 142.56°ELa Peña — 25.62°N, 100.46°WPabellón — 27.79°S, 70.31°WBolos — 38.27°N, 1.94°WSidi Lhousseine — 31.21°N, 7.88°WPerte du Rhône — 46.83°N, 6.52°ETotoralillo — 27.50°S, 70.25°WTotoralillo — 27.48°S, 70.20°WRagged Valley Shale — 36.33°N, 120.57°WRagged Valley Shale — 36.14°N, 120.36°WBykov — 47.37°N, 142.50°EBykov — 48.28°N, 142.49°EKarai — 11.21°N, 78.98°EKarai — 11.07°N, 78.86°EGrayson Marl — 31.60°N, 97.21°WCerro Toro — 49.80°S, 72.51°WNeuburger Weiß — 48.73°N, 11.18°EPerte-du-Rhone — 45.15°N, 5.48°EFerruginous Sands — 50.60°N, 1.32°WAground Ouadar — 31.21°N, 7.88°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Cymatoceras has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 30 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 183 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Cymatoceras and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Cymatoceras and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

888 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 251 sites for Cymatoceras, and this reads 240 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

64 references

Each of the 284 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. 52 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 content2

Picture of Cymatoceras

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC0 Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

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 itNautilidae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Hyatt 1884)