Dorfopterus

Dorfopterus is a genus of extinct invertebrate, possibly an eurypterid. Only one fossil of the single and type species, D. angusticollis, has been discovered in deposits of the Early Devonian period in the Beartooth Butte Formation in Wyoming, in the United States. The first half of the name of the genus honors the discoverer of this formation, Erling Dorf, while the second half consists in the Ancient Greek word πτερόν (pteron), meaning "wing". The species name angusticollis is composed of the Latin words angustus ("narrow") and collum ("neck").

A picture published with the record for Dorfopterus. What it shows has not been checked.

Super Dromaeosaurus · 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
AnimaliaPBDB

Time the record covers

At most 18 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 410.62 Mya and 393.47 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Devonian — about 1 of 1 occurrenceDevonian411–411 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences411–410 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences410–409 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences409–409 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences409–408 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences408–407 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences407–407 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences407–406 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences406–406 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences406–405 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences405–404 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences404–404 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences404–403 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences403–403 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences403–402 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences402–401 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences401–401 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences401–400 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences400–400 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences400–399 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences399–398 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences398–398 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences398–397 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences397–397 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences397–396 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences396–395 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences395–395 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences395–394 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences394–394 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences394–393 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences411.1 Mya393 Mya

1 occurrence of Dorfopterus 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

1 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

Beartooth Butte — 44.95°N, 109.62°W

Loading coastlines…

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

Dorfopterus and its relatives

Devonian

Where Dorfopterus and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.

Found in the same rock

42 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Dorfopterus, 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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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 Dorfopterus

Credit
Super Dromaeosaurus
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Dorfopterus 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 itAnimalia through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.