Doryaspis

Doryaspis is an extinct genus of armored jawless fish belonging to the order Pteraspidiformes. It contains five species, all of which are exclusively known from what is now the island of Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago of Norway. The genus lived during the Pragian to Emsian ages of the Early Devonian period. Doryaspis is distinguished from other pteraspidiforms by several unusual features, most notably its narrow, outward-pointing cornual plates and a long, pointed projection near its mouth known as a pseudorostrum.

Doryaspis

Ghedo · 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
DoryaspidaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Chordata

Time the record covers

At most 27 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 419.62 Mya and 393.47 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Silurian — about 0 of 10 occurrencesDevonian — about 10 of 10 occurrencesDevonian420–419 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences419–418 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences418–417 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences417–417 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences417–416 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences416–415 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences415–414 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences414–413 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences413–412 Mya — about 1 occurrence412–411 Mya — about 1 occurrence411–410 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences410–409 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences409–408 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences408–407 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences407–407 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences407–406 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences406–405 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences405–404 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences404–403 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences403–402 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences402–401 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences401–400 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences400–399 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences399–398 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences398–397 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences397–397 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences397–396 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences396–395 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences395–394 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences394–393 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences420.1 Mya392.9 Mya

10 occurrences of Doryaspis 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

10 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

3 formations

Wood Bay — 78.77°N, 15.48°EWood Bay — 79.39°N, 13.80°EWood Bay — 79.29°N, 13.72°EWood Bay — 78.85°N, 15.45°EWood Bay — 78.89°N, 15.52°EBen Nevis — 79.63°N, 12.29°E

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

Doryaspis and its relatives

Devonian

Where Doryaspis and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.

Found in the same rock

36 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Doryaspis, 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

5 references

Each of the 10 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. 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 Doryaspis

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

No 3D scan of Doryaspis 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 itDoryaspidae through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. White 1935