Leptosphinctes

Leptosphinctes is an extinct genus from a well-known class of fossil cephalopods, the ammonites. It lived during the Jurassic Period, which lasted from approximately 200 to 145 million years ago.

A picture published with the record for Leptosphinctes.

Wilson44691 · CC0 · 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
LeptosphinctinaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Ammonoidea
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Ammonoidea
Motility
fast-movingPBDB, for Ammonoidea
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
Environment
marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda

Time the record covers

At least 400 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 168.6 Mya to 168.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 170.9 Mya to 165.3 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 58 of 58 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic171–171 Mya — about 2 occurrences171–171 Mya — about 3 occurrences171–170 Mya — about 3 occurrences170–170 Mya — about 3 occurrences170–170 Mya — about 3 occurrences170–170 Mya — about 3 occurrences170–169 Mya — about 3 occurrences169–169 Mya — about 3 occurrences169–169 Mya — about 3 occurrences169–169 Mya — about 3 occurrences169–169 Mya — about 6 occurrences169–168 Mya — about 17 occurrences168–168 Mya — about 9 occurrences168–168 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences168–168 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences168–167 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences167–167 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences167–167 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences167–167 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences167–167 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences167–166 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences166–166 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences166–166 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences166–166 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences166–165 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences165–165 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences168.6 Mya – 168.2 Mya171.4 Mya164.8 Mya

58 occurrences of Leptosphinctes on record, most of them in the Middle Jurassic. 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

58 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

13 formations

Djangura — 43.94°N, 41.89°EDjangura — 43.97°N, 41.76°EDjangura — 43.91°N, 41.46°EChaloi — 39.80°N, 54.38°EChaloi — 39.75°N, 54.50°ETaberna — 16.78°N, 96.95°WDzhor — 44.25°N, 40.74°ESmithers — 56.73°N, 127.35°WDhruma — 25.33°N, 45.50°EDhruma — 25.50°N, 45.00°ETsudakhar — 42.65°N, 46.93°ETsudakhar — 42.47°N, 46.65°ECaleta Lígate — 20.13°S, 70.02°WCaleta Lígate — 20.34°S, 70.02°WCuber — 39.85°N, 3.20°EDalichai — 36.27°N, 54.10°EKumukh — 42.65°N, 46.93°EKambe — 4.02°S, 39.55°ESnowshoe — 44.13°N, 118.98°W

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The named rock units Leptosphinctes has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 20 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Leptosphinctes and its relatives

Middle Jurassic

Where Leptosphinctes and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

117 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 27 sites for Leptosphinctes, 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

14 references

Each of the 58 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. 2 further references are 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 Leptosphinctes

Credit
Wilson44691
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan is on file for Leptosphinctes.

This entry was cached before the site began recording what Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab did, so a search that failed cannot be told from one that found nothing.

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 itLeptosphinctinae through timeFormations of the Middle JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.