Petromyzontiformes

Lampreys are a group of jawless fish composing the order Petromyzontiformes, sole order in the class Petromyzontida. The adult lamprey is characterized by a toothed, funnel-like, sucking mouth. The common name "lamprey" is probably derived from Latin lampetra, which may mean "stone licker", though the etymology is uncertain. "Lamprey" is sometimes seen for the plural form.

Petromyzontiformes

Uncredited · 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
Also called
lampreyPBDB
Sits inside
PetromyzontidaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Chordata

Time the record covers

At least 233 million years on record.

The record covers at least 358.86 Mya to 125.77 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 372.15 Mya to 100.5 Mya.

Devonian — about 2 of 7 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 2 of 7 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 0 of 7 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 7 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 7 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 7 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 7 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 7 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 7 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 3 of 7 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 7 occurrences378–368 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences368–359 Mya — about 1 occurrence330–321 Mya — about 1 occurrence321–312 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences312–302 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences152–142 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences142–133 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences133–123 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences123–114 Mya — about 1 occurrence114–104 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences104–95 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences358.86 Mya125.77 Mya378 Mya95 Mya

7 occurrences of Petromyzontiformes on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. 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

7 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

5 formations

Witpoort — 33.32°S, 26.54°EJiufotang — 42.20°N, 117.94°EYixian — 41.57°N, 119.33°EHeath — 46.95°N, 108.96°WCarbondale — 41.21°N, 88.22°W

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

Petromyzontiformes and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

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

Found in the same rock

90 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Petromyzontiformes, 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

7 references

Each of the 7 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. 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 Petromyzontiformes

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Petromyzontiformes 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 itPetromyzontida through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

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