Muensterella scutellaris

Muensterella is an extinct genus of small muensterellid cephalopod, which superficially resembles cuttlefish or bobtail squid but are actually more closely related to vampire squid. Fossils of this genus have primarily been found in the Upper Jurassic lithographic limestones of Southern Germany, and additional material is known from the Tithonian of Antarctica and the Upper Cretaceous of Germany and Texas.

Muensterella scutellaris

Dirk Fuchs · CC BY-SA 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
MuensterellaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Cephalopoda
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Octopoda
Motility
fast-movingPBDB, for Cephalopoda
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
Environment
marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda

Time the record covers

At most 4.2 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 149.2 Mya and 145.06 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Late Jurassic — about 1 of 1 occurrenceLate Jurassic149–149 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences149–149 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences149–149 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences149–149 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences149–149 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences149–148 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences148–148 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences148–148 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences148–148 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences148–148 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences148–147 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences147–147 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences147–147 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences147–147 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences147–147 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences147–147 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences147–146 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences146–146 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences146–146 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences146–146 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences146–146 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences146–146 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences146–145 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences145–145 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences145–145 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences145–145 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences149.7 Mya144.6 Mya

1 occurrence of Muensterella scutellaris 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

1 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

Solnhofener Plattenkalk — 48.91°N, 11.38°E

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

Muensterella scutellaris and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Muensterella scutellaris and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

12 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Muensterella scutellaris, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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 reference

Each 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 Muensterella scutellaris

Credit
Dirk Fuchs
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Muensterella scutellaris was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itMuensterella through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Muenster 1842)