Rhenopterus

Rhenopterus is an extinct prehistoric eurypterid. Fossils of Rhenopterus have been recovered from deposits of Lower Devonian age in Germany.

Rhenopterus

Qohelet12 · CC BY-SA 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
RhenopteridaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Eurypterida
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Eurypterida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Eurypterida
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Eurypterida

Time the record covers

At most 14 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 413.02 Mya and 399.5 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Devonian — about 4 of 4 occurrencesDevonian413–413 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences413–412 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences412–412 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences412–411 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences411–411 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences411–410 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences410–410 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences410–409 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences409–409 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences409–408 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences408–408 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences408–407 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences407–407 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences407–406 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences406–406 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences406–405 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences405–405 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences405–404 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences404–404 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences404–403 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences403–403 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences403–402 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences402–402 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences402–401 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences401–401 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences401–400 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences400–400 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences400–399 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences413.5 Mya399 Mya

4 occurrences of Rhenopterus on record, most of them in the Devonian. 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

4 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

Klerf — 50.25°N, 6.46°EWahnbach — 50.94°N, 7.29°EHunsrück Slate — 49.83°N, 7.37°E

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The named rock units Rhenopterus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Rhenopterus and its relatives

Devonian

Where Rhenopterus and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.

Found in the same rock

199 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Rhenopterus, 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

4 references

Each of the 4 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 Rhenopterus

Credit
Qohelet12
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Rhenopterus 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 itRhenopteridae through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Størmer 1936