Ptycholepis

Ptycholepis is an extinct genus of prehistoric ray-finned fish having the head and opercular bones ornamented with ridges of ganoin, minute teeth, and thick scales.

Ptycholepis

Daderot · 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
PtycholepididaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 95 million years on record.

The record covers at least 244.4 Mya to 149.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 245.19 Mya to 137.05 Mya.

Early Triassic — about 0 of 56 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 29 of 56 occurrencesMiddle TriassicLate Triassic — about 5 of 56 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 20 of 56 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 1 of 56 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 1 of 56 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 56 occurrences247–244 Mya — about 2 occurrences244–240 Mya — about 23 occurrences240–236 Mya — about 5 occurrences236–232 Mya — about 2 occurrences229–225 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences225–221 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences221–217 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences217–214 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences214–210 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences210–206 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences206–202 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences202–199 Mya — about 7 occurrences199–195 Mya — about 5 occurrences195–191 Mya — about 2 occurrences187–184 Mya — about 2 occurrences184–180 Mya — about 3 occurrences180–176 Mya — about 1 occurrence176–172 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences169–165 Mya — about 1 occurrence150–146 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences146–142 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences142–139 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences139–135 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences244.4 Mya149.2 Mya247 Mya135 Mya

56 occurrences of Ptycholepis 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

56 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

13 formations

Besano — 45.91°N, 8.95°EBesano — 45.90°N, 8.96°EBesano — 45.89°N, 8.90°EMuschelkalk — 41.27°N, 1.12°EShuttle Meadow — 41.42°N, 72.72°WShuttle Meadow — 41.40°N, 72.77°WMarnes de Jamoigne — 49.72°N, 5.22°EMoskovoretskaya — 55.20°N, 38.78°EPhu Kradung — 16.87°N, 101.72°EMidland — 38.62°N, 77.74°WFavret — 40.06°N, 117.56°WDont — 46.74°N, 12.12°EBoonton — 40.90°N, 74.40°WBull Canyon — 34.98°N, 104.15°WBull Run — 38.82°N, 77.71°W

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The named rock units Ptycholepis 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.

Ptycholepis and its relatives

Middle Triassic

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

Found in the same rock

363 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 43 sites for Ptycholepis, 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

20 references

Each of the 56 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. 8 further references are 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 Ptycholepis

Credit
Daderot
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ptycholepis 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 itPtycholepididae through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Agassiz 1832