Gnathorhiza
Searched as Gnathorhiza triassica bereznikiensis. The Paleobiology Database treats Gnathorhiza as the accepted name.
Gnathorhiza is an extinct genus of prehistoric lobe-finned fish (lungfish) which lived from the Carboniferous period to the Early Triassic epoch. It is the only known lungfish genus to have crossed the Permo-Triassic boundary. Several species have been described, ranging in size from 5 to 50 centimeters.

DiBgd · 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
- GnathorhizidaePBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- lagoonal,marine,brackish,freshwaterPBDB, for Dipnoi
Time the record covers
At most 3.8 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 250.8 Mya and 247 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
5 occurrences of Gnathorhiza on record, most of them in the Early Triassic. 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
5 occurrences- Early Triassic100%
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
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Gnathorhiza has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Gnathorhiza and its relatives
Early TriassicWhere Gnathorhiza and its relatives were recorded in the Early Triassic.
Found in the same rock
161 taxa- Trimerorhachis7 sites
- Xenacanthus7 sites
- Brachydectes newberryi6 sites
- Diplocaulus6 sites
- Diadectes5 sites
- Dimetrodon giganhomogenes5 sites
- Diplocaulus recurvatus5 sites
- Brachydectes4 sites
- Edaphosaurus4 sites
- Archeria3 sites
- Captorhinikos valensis3 sites
- Captorhinus aguti3 sites
- Diplocaulus magnicornis3 sites
- Diplocaulus primus3 sites
- Eryops3 sites
- Eryops megacephalus3 sites
- Ophiacodon3 sites
- Phlegethontia3 sites
- Platyhystrix3 sites
- Waggoneria knoxensis3 sites
- Archosauriformes2 sites
- Captorhinoides valensis2 sites
- Chroniosuchus paradoxus2 sites
- Dimetrodon2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 25 sites for Gnathorhiza, 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 referenceEach of the 5 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Gnathorhiza
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- DiBgd
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Gnathorhiza 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, “Gnathorhiza”
- 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 itGnathorhizidae through timeFormations of the Early TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cope 1883