Petalodontidae

Petalodontidae is an extinct family of marine cartilaginous fish related to the modern-day chimaeras, found in what is now the United States of America and Europe. With a very few exceptions, they are known entirely from teeth. All fossils range from the Carboniferous to the Permian, where they are presumed to have died out during the Permian/Triassic extinction event.

Petalodontidae

James St. John · CC BY 2.0 · 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
PetalodontiformesPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Petalodontiformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Petalodontiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Petalodontiformes

Time the record covers

At least 229 million years on record.

The record covers at least 342.9 Mya to 113.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 358.86 Mya to 110.1 Mya.

Devonian — about 0 of 95 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 77 of 95 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 17 of 95 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 95 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 95 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 95 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 95 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 95 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 95 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 95 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous364–355 Mya — about 2 occurrences355–347 Mya — about 7 occurrences347–338 Mya — about 13 occurrences338–329 Mya — about 10 occurrences329–321 Mya — about 6 occurrences321–312 Mya — about 8 occurrences312–303 Mya — about 22 occurrences303–295 Mya — about 14 occurrences295–286 Mya — about 4 occurrences286–278 Mya — about 1 occurrence278–269 Mya — about 4 occurrences269–260 Mya — about 1 occurrence260–252 Mya — about 2 occurrences114–105 Mya — about 1 occurrence342.9 Mya113.2 Mya364 Mya105 Mya

95 occurrences of Petalodontidae 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

95 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

25 formations

Ste. Genevieve — 37.19°N, 86.10°WGrenola — 37.35°N, 96.80°WGrenola — 38.95°N, 96.40°WGrenola — 39.00°N, 96.60°WForaker — 39.20°N, 96.57°WForaker — 36.07°N, 96.72°WEdwardsville — 39.25°N, 86.33°WEdwardsville — 39.04°N, 86.50°WAkasaka — 35.40°N, 136.58°EGlenshaw — 40.43°N, 79.30°WGlenshaw — 40.38°N, 79.75°WForaker Limestone — 39.27°N, 96.44°WFlechado — 36.41°N, 105.57°WIrati — 22.42°S, 47.65°WIchinotani — 36.22°N, 137.51°EMizuyagadani — 36.23°N, 137.52°ENabeyama — 36.40°N, 139.60°EHeath — 46.95°N, 108.96°WBlack Prince Limestone — 31.73°N, 109.57°WNaco — 34.33°N, 111.12°WGray Mesa — 34.10°N, 106.80°WCorona — 46.52°N, 13.31°EAltamont Limestone — 37.04°N, 95.53°WOread — 38.72°N, 95.43°WBarneston Limestone — 39.07°N, 96.54°WKeokuk Limestone — 40.41°N, 91.40°WFunabuseyama — 35.63°N, 136.60°EGlencartholm Volcanic Beds — 55.20°N, 3.07°WPhosphoria — 42.67°N, 108.68°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Petalodontidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. One further formation holds fewer occurrences and is not listed. 55 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Petalodontidae and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Petalodontidae and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

631 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 67 sites for Petalodontidae, 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

39 references

Each of the 95 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. 27 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 Petalodontidae

Credit
James St. John
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Petalodontidae 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 itPetalodontiformes through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Newberry and Worthen 1866