Megalocephalus

Megalocephalus is an extinct genus of baphetid tetrapodomorph from the late Carboniferous of the British Isles and the United States (Ohio). It contains two species, M. pachycephalus and M. lineolatus.

Megalocephalus

Neil Pezzoni · CC BY 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
LoxommatinaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
brackish,freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Tetrapoda

Time the record covers

At least 7.1 million years on record.

The record covers at least 316.9 Mya to 309.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 323.4 Mya to 306 Mya.

Carboniferous — about 12 of 12 occurrencesCarboniferous324–323 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences323–323 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences323–322 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences322–321 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences321–321 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences321–320 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences320–320 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences320–319 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences319–318 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences318–318 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences318–317 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences317–317 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences317–316 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences316–315 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences315–315 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences315–314 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences314–313 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences313–313 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences313–312 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences312–312 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences312–311 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences311–310 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences310–310 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences310–309 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences309–309 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences309–308 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences308–307 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences307–307 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences307–306 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences306–306 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences316.9 Mya309.8 Mya323.9 Mya305.5 Mya

12 occurrences of Megalocephalus on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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

12 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

1 formation

Middle Coal Measures — 54.49°N, 1.84°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Megalocephalus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 11 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Megalocephalus and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Megalocephalus and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

48 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Megalocephalus, 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

4 references

Each of the 12 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 Megalocephalus

Credit
Neil Pezzoni
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Megalocephalus 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 itLoxommatinae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lehman 1955