Prorsisphinctes

Prorsisphinctes is an extinct genus from a well-known class of fossil cephalopods, the ammonites. It lived during the Middle Jurassic.

Prorsisphinctes

via iDigBio · CC BY · via iDigBio. 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
PerisphinctidaePBDB
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 14 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 174.7 Mya and 161.5 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Early Jurassic — about 0 of 11 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 11 of 11 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 0 of 11 occurrences175–174 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences174–174 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences174–173 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences173–173 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences173–172 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences172–172 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences172–171 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences171–171 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences171–170 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences170–170 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences170–170 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences170–169 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences169–169 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences169–168 Mya — about 3 occurrences168–168 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences168–167 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences167–167 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences167–166 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences166–166 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences166–165 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences165–165 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences165–164 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences164–164 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences164–163 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences163–163 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences163–162 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences162–162 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences162–161 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences175.2 Mya161 Mya

11 occurrences of Prorsisphinctes on record, most of them in the Middle Jurassic. 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

11 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

7 formations

Tsudakhar — 42.47°N, 46.65°ETsudakhar — 42.56°N, 46.34°E"Berching" — 49.23°N, 11.47°EMeulam — 39.91°N, 54.17°ETasharvat — 39.75°N, 54.37°ESnowshoe — 44.13°N, 118.98°WTorcazas — 23.12°S, 69.00°WLajas — 37.46°S, 70.47°W

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

Prorsisphinctes and its relatives

Middle Jurassic

Where Prorsisphinctes and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

41 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Prorsisphinctes, 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

5 references

Each of the 11 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 Prorsisphinctes

Source
iDigBio
Credit
via iDigBio
Licence
CC BY
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Prorsisphinctes 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 itPerisphinctidae through timeFormations of the Middle JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.