Dinichthyidae
Dinichthys is an extinct monospecific genus of large marine arthrodire placoderm from the Late Devonian measuring around 3 metres (9.8 ft) long. Fossils were recovered from the Ohio Shale Formation along the Olentangy River in Delaware County, Ohio.

Apokryltaros · 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
- AspinothoracidiPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Arthrodira
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Arthrodira
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthrodira
Time the record covers
At least 20 million years on record.
The record covers at least 385.9 Mya to 365.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 387.95 Mya to 358.86 Mya.
16 occurrences of Dinichthyidae 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
16 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
10 formations
- Ohio Shale Formation2
- Gogo Formation2
- Manitoba Limestone Formation1
- Louisiana Limestone Formation1
- Cedar Valley Formation1
- Bahram Formation1
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The named rock units Dinichthyidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Dinichthyidae and its relatives
DevonianWhere Dinichthyidae and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.
Found in the same rock
128 taxa- Bullerichthys fascidens2 sites
- Dinichthys2 sites
- Dinichthys herzeri2 sites
- Dipterus2 sites
- Eastmanosteus2 sites
- Eastmanosteus calliaspis2 sites
- Eastmanosteus pustulosus2 sites
- Holonema2 sites
- Latocamurus coulthardi2 sites
- Moythomasia devonica2 sites
- Onychodus2 sites
- Acanthodii1 site
- Alienacanthus malkowskii1 site
- Alveolites1 site
- Antiarchi1 site
- Arabellites1 site
- Archaeogastropoda1 site
- Artenolepis golshanii1 site
- Astraeospongium1 site
- Athyris1 site
- Athyris lamellosa1 site
- Atrypa1 site
- Atrypa reticularis1 site
- Austroptyctodus gardineri1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Dinichthyidae, 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
13 references- End-Devonian extinction and a bottleneck in the early evolution of modern jawed vertebrates3
- Upper Devonian Fishes from the Holy Cross Mountains (Poland)2
- Evidence for Placoderms from the Mid-Palaeozoic Sandon Beds of North-western New South Wales, Australia1
- A new aspinothoracid arthrodire from the Late Devonian of Ohio, U.S.A1
- Two new species of Dunkleosteus Lehman, 1956, from the Ohio Shale Formation (USA, Famennian) and the Kettle Point Formation (Canada, Upper Devonian), and a cladistic analysis of the Eubrachythoraci (Placodermi, Arthrodira)1
- A new species of eastmanosteid arthrodire (Pisces: Placodermi) from Gogo, Western Australia1
- A new dinichthyid fish (Placodermi: Arthrodira) from the Upper Devonian of Western Australia, with a discussion of dinichthyid interrelationships1
- Preliminary report on Late Devonian fishes from central and eastern Iran1
- A dinichthyid in Middle Devonian of Iowa1
- Stratigraphy and fauna of the Louisiana Limestone of Missouri1
- The Silurian and Devonian section of western Manitoba1
- On the relations of certain plates in the Dinichthyids, with descriptions of new species1
Each of the 16 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. 1 further reference is 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 Dinichthyidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Apokryltaros
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Dinichthyidae 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Dinichthys”
- 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 itAspinothoracidi through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Newberry 1888)