Scymnodon ringens

The knifetooth dogfish, is a harmless sleeper shark of the family Somniosidae, found in the eastern Atlantic, from Scotland to Spain, Portugal, and Senegal, and the southwest Pacific from New Zealand, between latitudes 58°N and 15°N, at depths of between 200 and 1,600 m. Its length is up to 1.1 metres (3.6 ft).

Scymnodon ringens

Chris_huh · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
Also called
knifetooth dogfishPBDB
Sits inside
ScymnodonPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Squaliformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Squaliformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Squaliformes

Time the record covers

At least 3.3 million years on record.

The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 210 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 14 ka.

Miocene — about 0 of 7 occurrencesPliocene — about 3 of 7 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 4 of 7 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 7 occurrences5.4–5.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.3–5.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences5.1–4.9 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences4.9–4.7 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences4.7–4.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences4.5–4.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences4.3–4.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences4.1–3.9 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences3.9–3.7 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences3.7–3.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences3.5–3.3 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences3.3–3.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences3.1–2.9 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.9–2.7 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.7–2.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.9–1.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.8–1.6 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.6–1.4 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.4–1.2 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.2–972 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences972 ka–778 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences778 ka–583 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences389 ka–194 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences194 ka–0 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences3.6 Mya210 ka5.8 Mya0 Mya

7 occurrences of Scymnodon ringens on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

7 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

2 formations

Argille Azzurre — 44.72°N, 10.08°EArgille Azzurre — 44.24°N, 11.76°EArgille Azzurre — 44.28°N, 11.65°EPalos Verdes Sand — 33.60°N, 117.80°W

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The named rock units Scymnodon ringens has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Scymnodon ringens and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Scymnodon ringens and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

66 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Scymnodon ringens, 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

5 references

Each of the 7 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 Scymnodon ringens

Credit
Chris_huh
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Scymnodon ringens was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itScymnodon through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bocage and Capello 1864