Rhizodontiformes

Rhizodontida is an extinct group of predatory tetrapodomorphs known from many areas of the world from the Givetian through to the Pennsylvanian - they lived from around 377-310 million years ago. Rhizodonts lived in tropical rivers and freshwater lakes and were the dominant predators of their age. They reached huge sizes - the largest known species, Rhizodus hibberti from Europe and North America, was an estimated 7 meters in length, making them the largest freshwater fish known.

Rhizodontiformes

ДиБгд · 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
RhizodontidaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes

Time the record covers

At least 52 million years on record.

The record covers at least 382.31 Mya to 330.3 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 387.95 Mya to 326.9 Mya.

Devonian — about 4 of 5 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 1 of 5 occurrencesCarboniferous389–387 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences387–385 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences385–383 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences383–381 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences381–379 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences379–376 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences376–374 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences374–372 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences372–370 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences370–368 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences368–366 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences366–364 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences364–362 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences362–360 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences360–357 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences332–330 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences330–328 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences328–326 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences382.31 Mya330.3 Mya389 Mya326 Mya

5 occurrences of Rhizodontiformes 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

5 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

4 formations

Aztec Siltstone — 78.46°S, 158.75°EZhongning — 37.65°N, 105.99°ECuche — 6.58°N, 75.67°WManse Burn — 55.92°N, 4.33°W

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

Rhizodontiformes and its relatives

Devonian

Where Rhizodontiformes and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.

Found in the same rock

44 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Rhizodontiformes, 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 5 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Rhizodontiformes

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

No 3D scan of Rhizodontiformes 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 itRhizodontida through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Andrews and Westoll 1970