Phragmoteuthis

Phragmoteuthis is a genus of extinct coleoid cephalopod known from the late Triassic to the lower Jurassic. Its soft tissue has been preserved; some specimens contain intact ink sacs. It had an internal phragmocone and ten arms.

Phragmoteuthis

Alexander Lukeneder & Petra Lukeneder · CC BY 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
PhragmoteuthididaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Cephalopoda
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Phragmoteuthida
Motility
fast-movingPBDB, for Cephalopoda
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
Environment
marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda

Time the record covers

At least 33 million years on record.

The record covers at least 239.48 Mya to 205.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 243.43 Mya to 201.4 Mya.

Middle Triassic — about 3 of 5 occurrencesMiddle TriassicLate Triassic — about 2 of 5 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 5 occurrences244–243 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences243–241 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences241–240 Mya — about 1 occurrence240–238 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences238–237 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences237–236 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences236–234 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences234–233 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences233–231 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences231–230 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences230–228 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences228–227 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences206–205 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences205–203 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences203–202 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences202–201 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences239.48 Mya205.7 Mya244.3 Mya200.6 Mya

5 occurrences of Phragmoteuthis on record, most of them in the Middle Triassic. 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

5 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

3 formations

Besano — 45.91°N, 8.95°EZlambach — 47.65°N, 13.67°EWengen — 46.55°N, 11.87°E

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The named rock units Phragmoteuthis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Phragmoteuthis and its relatives

Middle Triassic

Where Phragmoteuthis and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Triassic.

Found in the same rock

64 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Phragmoteuthis, 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

3 references

Each of the 5 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 Phragmoteuthis

Credit
Alexander Lukeneder & Petra Lukeneder
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Phragmoteuthis 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 itPhragmoteuthididae through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. von Mojsisovics 1882