Pachycormiformes

Pachycormiformes is an extinct order of marine ray-finned fish known from the Early Jurassic to the end of the Cretaceous. Depending on the treatment, it only includes a single family, Pachycormidae, or two families: the mostly filter-feeding Pachycormidae and the carnivorous Protosphyraenidae. They were characterized by having serrated pectoral fins, reduced pelvic fins and a bony rostrum. Pachycormiformes are morphologically diverse, containing both tuna and swordfish-like carnivorous forms, as well as edentulous suspension-feeding forms.

Pachycormiformes

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
AspidorhyncheiPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
nektonicPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB

Time the record covers

At least 161 million years on record.

The record covers at least 233.6 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 237 Mya to 66 Mya.

Middle Triassic — about 0 of 157 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 2 of 157 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 65 of 157 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 9 of 157 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 19 of 157 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 8 of 157 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 54 of 157 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 157 occurrences240–234 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences234–229 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences211–205 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences205–199 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences187–181 Mya — about 50 occurrences181–175 Mya — about 14 occurrences175–169 Mya — about 1 occurrence169–163 Mya — about 5 occurrences163–157 Mya — about 7 occurrences157–152 Mya — about 4 occurrences152–146 Mya — about 11 occurrences146–140 Mya — about 1 occurrence128–122 Mya — about 2 occurrences122–116 Mya — about 2 occurrences116–110 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences110–104 Mya — about 1 occurrence104–98 Mya — about 9 occurrences98–92 Mya — about 15 occurrences92–86 Mya — about 7 occurrences86–80 Mya — about 9 occurrences80–74 Mya — about 4 occurrences74–69 Mya — about 8 occurrences69–63 Mya — about 4 occurrences233.6 Mya72.2 Mya240 Mya63 Mya

157 occurrences of Pachycormiformes on record, most of them in the Early Jurassic. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

157 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

39 formations

Posidonienschiefer — 48.63°N, 9.51°EGreenhorn Limestone — 37.22°N, 103.60°WGreenhorn Limestone — 39.00°N, 98.92°WGreenhorn Limestone — 44.65°N, 103.58°WGreenhorn Limestone — 37.69°N, 103.94°WGreenhorn Limestone — 37.46°N, 103.05°WGreenhorn Limestone — 39.04°N, 98.99°WGreenhorn Limestone — 38.78°N, 98.96°WGreenhorn Limestone — 38.74°N, 99.04°WFox Hills — 46.05°N, 103.88°WFox Hills — 46.47°N, 99.58°WFox Hills — 46.10°N, 100.42°WFox Hills — 46.38°N, 100.75°WFox Hills — 46.29°N, 100.18°WOxford Clay — 52.55°N, 0.24°WOxford Clay — 53.54°N, 0.23°WNiobrara — 38.72°N, 100.70°WNiobrara — 38.79°N, 100.76°WNiobrara — 38.80°N, 100.19°WSolnhofen — 48.90°N, 11.16°ESolnhofen — 48.91°N, 11.14°EBeacon Limstone — 50.93°N, 2.91°WNusplingen Limestone — 48.13°N, 8.88°EKuwajima — 36.17°N, 136.63°EMooreville Chalk — 32.60°N, 87.68°WMooreville Chalk — 32.84°N, 87.89°WPosidonia Shale — 48.65°N, 9.53°ECalcaire de Creully — 49.29°N, 0.49°WCalcaire de Creully — 49.12°N, 0.16°WCarlile Shale — 39.78°N, 98.15°WCarlile Shale — 42.74°N, 97.03°WHolleywell, New Pit, Lewes — 51.30°N, 0.39°EAbrek — 44.08°N, 42.02°EAbrek — 43.99°N, 42.17°EPolpino — 51.97°N, 35.95°EDakota — 40.06°N, 97.34°WDakota — 38.92°N, 98.50°WPierre Shale — 49.33°N, 98.31°WBelle Fourche — 53.21°N, 103.52°WAshville — 53.48°N, 102.24°WCalcare di Sogno — 45.83°N, 9.30°ELa Cabaña — 43.34°N, 5.84°WEagle Ford — 31.53°N, 97.21°WTrossingen — 51.90°N, 11.07°E

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The named rock units Pachycormiformes has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 15 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 74 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Pachycormiformes and its relatives

Early Jurassic

Where Pachycormiformes and its relatives were recorded in the Early Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

1,016 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 117 sites for Pachycormiformes, 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

74 references

Each of the 157 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. 62 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 Pachycormiformes

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

No 3D scan of Pachycormiformes 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 itAspidorhynchei through timeFormations of the Early JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Berg 1940