Pteronisculus

Pteronisculus is an extinct genus of prehistoric ray-finned fish that lived during the Early Triassic and Middle Triassic epochs of the Triassic period worldwide.

Pteronisculus

Oilshale · CC0 · 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
ActinopterygiiPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 6.7 million years on record.

The record covers at least 251.1 Mya to 244.4 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 251.902 Mya to 243.43 Mya.

Permian — about 0 of 34 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 31 of 34 occurrencesEarly TriassicMiddle Triassic — about 3 of 34 occurrencesMiddle Triassic252–252 Mya — about 2 occurrences252–251 Mya — about 5 occurrences251–251 Mya — about 5 occurrences251–251 Mya — about 14 occurrences251–251 Mya — about 2 occurrences251–250 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences250–250 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences250–250 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences250–249 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences249–249 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences249–249 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences249–248 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences245–244 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences244–244 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences244–244 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences244–243 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences251.1 Mya244.4 Mya252.4 Mya242.9 Mya

34 occurrences of Pteronisculus on record, most of them in the Early 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

34 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

Wordie Creek — 72.41°N, 23.49°WWordie Creek — 72.07°N, 23.75°WWordie Creek — 72.06°N, 23.87°WWordie Creek — 74.27°N, 21.00°WGuanling — 24.71°N, 104.33°EGuanling — 24.78°N, 104.33°ESulphur Mountain — 54.53°N, 120.74°WSpray River — 54.54°N, 120.79°WMiddle Sakamena — 13.51°S, 49.07°ECandelaria — 38.13°N, 118.03°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Pteronisculus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 22 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Pteronisculus and its relatives

Early Triassic

Where Pteronisculus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Triassic.

Found in the same rock

89 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 24 sites for Pteronisculus, 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

13 references

Each of the 34 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. 1 further reference is 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 Pteronisculus

Credit
Oilshale
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Pteronisculus 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 itActinopterygii through timeFormations of the Early TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. White 1933