Oosterella

Oosterella is an extinct ammonoid cephalopod genus belonging to the family Oosterellidae. These fast-moving nektonic carnivores lived during the Cretaceous, from the upper Valanginian age to the lower Hauterivian age.

Oosterella

Hectonichus · 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
OosterellidaePBDB
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 most 16 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 137.05 Mya and 121.4 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Early Cretaceous — about 178 of 178 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous138–137 Mya — about 2 occurrences137–136 Mya — about 18 occurrences136–136 Mya — about 18 occurrences136–135 Mya — about 18 occurrences135–135 Mya — about 18 occurrences135–134 Mya — about 18 occurrences134–134 Mya — about 18 occurrences134–133 Mya — about 18 occurrences133–133 Mya — about 17 occurrences133–132 Mya — about 2 occurrences132–131 Mya — about 2 occurrences131–131 Mya — about 2 occurrences131–130 Mya — about 2 occurrences130–130 Mya — about 2 occurrences130–129 Mya — about 2 occurrences129–129 Mya — about 2 occurrences129–128 Mya — about 2 occurrences128–128 Mya — about 2 occurrences128–127 Mya — about 2 occurrences127–126 Mya — about 2 occurrences126–126 Mya — about 2 occurrences126–125 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences125–125 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences125–124 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences124–124 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences124–123 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences123–123 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences123–122 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences122–121 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences121–121 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences137.6 Mya120.9 Mya

178 occurrences of Oosterella on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. 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

178 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

12 formations

Taraises — 26.98°N, 102.08°WTaraises — 24.70°N, 103.50°WMaiolica — 43.47°N, 12.72°EMaiolica — 43.53°N, 12.58°EEl Mergueb — 36.84°N, 9.62°ERossfeld — 47.79°N, 14.52°EBersek Marl — 47.75°N, 18.50°EBiancone — 45.58°N, 11.12°EGrand Essert — 45.97°N, 5.61°EAgrio — 38.05°S, 70.03°WMraznica — 49.03°N, 18.28°EPieniny Limestone — 48.73°N, 17.47°EBrasov — 45.70°N, 25.45°EMogyorósdomb Limestone — 47.17°N, 17.79°E

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The named rock units Oosterella has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 128 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Oosterella and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Oosterella and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

139 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 126 sites for Oosterella, 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

22 references

Each of the 178 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. 10 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 Oosterella

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

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itOosterellidae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Kilian 1911