Mesturus

Mesturus is an extinct genus of ray-finned fish from the Jurassic.

Mesturus

Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
MesturidaePBDB
Diet
durophage, carnivorePBDB, for Pycnodontiformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Pycnodontiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Pycnodontiformes

Time the record covers

At least 16 million years on record.

The record covers at least 161.5 Mya to 145.06 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 165.3 Mya to 141 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 1 of 3 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 1 of 3 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 3 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous166–165 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences165–164 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences164–163 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences163–162 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences162–162 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences162–161 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences150–149 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences149–148 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences148–147 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences147–146 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences146–146 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences146–145 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences145–144 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences144–143 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences143–142 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences142–141 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences141–141 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences161.5 Mya145.06 Mya165.8 Mya140.5 Mya

3 occurrences of Mesturus on record, most of them in the Late 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

3 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

Solnhofen — 48.91°N, 11.14°E

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The named rock units Mesturus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Mesturus and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Mesturus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

110 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Mesturus, 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

3 references

Each of the 3 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 Mesturus

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Mesturus 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 itMesturidae through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Wagner 1862