Megalichthyidae

Megalichthyidae is an extinct family of tetrapodomorphs which lived from the Middle–Late Devonian to the Early Permian. They are known primarily from freshwater deposits, mostly in the Northern Hemisphere, but one genus (Cladarosymblema) is known from Australia, and the possible megalichthyid Mahalalepis is from Antarctica.

Megalichthyidae

Ghedoghedo · Public Domain · 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
OsteolepiformesPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 75 million years on record.

The record covers at least 358.86 Mya to 283.3 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 382.31 Mya to 274.4 Mya.

Devonian — about 1 of 6 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 1 of 6 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 4 of 6 occurrencesPermian384–381 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences381–377 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences377–373 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences373–370 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences370–366 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences366–362 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences362–358 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences347–343 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences343–340 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences340–336 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences336–332 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences332–328 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences302–298 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences298–295 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences295–291 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences291–287 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences287–283 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences283–280 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences280–276 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences276–272 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences358.86 Mya283.3 Mya384 Mya272 Mya

6 occurrences of Megalichthyidae on record, most of them in the Permian. 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

6 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

5 formations

Cutler — 37.17°N, 109.85°WHennessey — 34.19°N, 98.79°WGarber — 36.66°N, 97.69°WCuche — 6.58°N, 75.67°WRaymond — 22.88°S, 146.82°E

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

Megalichthyidae and its relatives

Permian

Where Megalichthyidae and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.

Found in the same rock

51 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Megalichthyidae, 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 6 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 Megalichthyidae

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Megalichthyidae 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 itOsteolepiformes through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hay 1902