Psammodus

Psammodus is an extinct genus of cartilaginous fish known from the Late Devonian to the Early Carboniferous period. It is the only member of the family Psammodontidae and the order Psammodontiformes, although other genera have been classified in these groups in the past. Psammodus were durophagous carnivores.

Psammodus

Bashford Dean · Public Domain · 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
PsammodontidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Psammodontiformes
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Psammodontiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Psammodontiformes

Time the record covers

At least 183 million years on record.

The record covers at least 351.9 Mya to 168.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 358.86 Mya to 165.3 Mya.

Devonian — about 0 of 16 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 14 of 16 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 1 of 16 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 16 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 16 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 16 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 16 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 1 of 16 occurrences363–356 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences356–349 Mya — about 2 occurrences349–343 Mya — about 2 occurrences343–336 Mya — about 3 occurrences336–329 Mya — about 2 occurrences329–322 Mya — about 2 occurrences322–316 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences316–309 Mya — about 1 occurrence309–302 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences302–296 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences262–255 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences255–249 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences175–168 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences168–161 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences351.9 Mya168.2 Mya363 Mya161 Mya

16 occurrences of Psammodus 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

16 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

6 formations

Alan Mountain Limestone — 47.42°N, 105.59°WMaydown Limestone — 54.42°N, 6.73°WUm Bogma — 29.06°N, 33.13°EBangor — 34.83°N, 87.67°WWargal — 32.24°N, 71.15°ETaynton Limestone — 51.85°N, 1.43°W

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The named rock units Psammodus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 10 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Psammodus and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Psammodus and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

200 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Psammodus, 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

9 references

Each of the 16 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 Psammodus

Credit
Bashford Dean
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Psammodus 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 itPsammodontidae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Agassiz 1834