Japonites
Searched as Japonites raphaelis zojae. The Paleobiology Database treats Japonites as the accepted name.

Yale Peabody Museum · CC0 · via GBIF. 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
- JaponitidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Ceratitida
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Ceratitida
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Ceratitida
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda
Time the record covers
At most 2.6 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 247 Mya and 244.4 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Japonites on record, most of them in the Middle 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
1 occurrences- Middle 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
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The named rock units Japonites has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Japonites and its relatives
Middle TriassicWhere Japonites and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Triassic.
Found in the same rock
196 taxa- Leiophyllites4 sites
- Acrochordiceras3 sites
- Magnigondolella alexanderi3 sites
- Monophyllites wengensis3 sites
- Periclaraia jinyaensis3 sites
- Sturia sansovinii3 sites
- Anagymnites acutus2 sites
- Echinodermata2 sites
- Eodanubites xinyuanensis2 sites
- Epigymnites jollyanus2 sites
- Flexoptychites angustoumbilicatus2 sites
- Gastropoda2 sites
- Gymnites sankara2 sites
- Hollandites2 sites
- Joannites2 sites
- Leiophyllites pitamaha2 sites
- Megaphyllites2 sites
- Megaphyllites chiosensis2 sites
- Metadagnoceras2 sites
- Mollusca2 sites
- Paracrochordiceras2 sites
- Proarcestes2 sites
- Pseudosageceras multilobatum2 sites
- Ptychites trochleaeformis2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 32 sites for Japonites, 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 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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1

Picture of Japonites
- Source
- GBIF
- Credit
- Yale Peabody Museum
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Japonites 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itJaponitidae through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Mojsisovics 1893