Squatinidae

RYO SATO from Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan · CC BY-SA 2.0 · via Wikidata/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
- angel sharkPBDB
- Sits inside
- SquatiniformesPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Squatiniformes
- Life habit
- nektobenthicPBDB, for Squatiniformes
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Squatiniformes
Time the record covers
At least 154 million years on record.
The record covers at least 154.8 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 201.4 Mya to 0 Mya.
443 occurrences of Squatinidae on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
443 occurrences- Early Jurassicunder 1%
- Middle Jurassicunder 1%
- Late Jurassicunder 1%
- Early Cretaceous17%
- Late Cretaceous27%
- Paleocene5%
- Eocene19%
- Oligocene5%
- Miocene19%
- Pliocene4%
- Pleistocene3%
- Holoceneunder 1%
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
170 formations
- Hunstanton Formation35
- La Meseta Formation14
- Fox Hills Formation · Montana Group8
- Navesink Formation · Monmouth Group7
- Berchem Formation7
- Palos Verdes Sand Formation6
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Squatinidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 146 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 113 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Squatinidae and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Squatinidae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
3,801 taxa- Squatina78 sites
- Squatina (Cretascyllium) cranei50 sites
- Squatina (Cretascyllium) hassei44 sites
- Gladioserratus aptiensis35 sites
- Squalicorax kaupi35 sites
- Heterodontus34 sites
- Synechodus dubrisiensis31 sites
- Archaeolamna kopingensis29 sites
- Myliobatis29 sites
- Protosqualus sigei28 sites
- Carcharodon hastalis27 sites
- Cretalamna appendiculata25 sites
- Carcharhinus24 sites
- Ischyrhiza mira24 sites
- Scyliorhinus24 sites
- Squalus23 sites
- Squatina prima23 sites
- Carcharias22 sites
- Hybodus21 sites
- Carcharias samhammeri20 sites
- Paralbula casei20 sites
- Rhinobatos20 sites
- Crocodylia19 sites
- Hemipristis serra19 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 413 sites for Squatinidae, and this reads 240 of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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
229 references- Albian and Cenomanian selachian assemblages from north-east England30
- Squatiniformes (Chondrichthyes, Neoselachii) from the Late Cretaceous of southern England and northern France with redescription of the holotype of Squatina cranei Woodward, 188825
- Les sélaciens des terrains néocrétacés and paléocènes de Belgique and des contrées limitrophes. Eléments d'une biostratigraphie intercontinentale18
- Les Elasmobranches de l'Albien inferieur et moyen (Cretace inferieur) de la Marne et de la Haute-Marne (France)11
- Late Cretaceous and Danian neoselachians from southern Sweden10
- Chondrichthyan and osteichthyan paleofaunas from the Cretaceous (Late Maastrichtian) Fox Hills Formation of North Dakota, USA: paleoecology, paleogeography, and extinction7
- Eocene squalomorph sharks (Chondrichthyes, Elasmobranchii) from Antarctica7
- Late Mesozoic and Cenozoic fish faunas of Japan7
- Les chondrichthyens du Miocène moyen (Serravallien) de Salles (Gironde, France)6
- Shark and ray faunas in the Middle and Late Eocene of the Fayum Area, Egypt6
- Inventaire des Élasmobranches (requins, raies, chimères) des dépôts molassiques du Sud-Luberon (Miocène supérieur)6
- Middle Eocene chondrichthyan fauna from Antarctic Peninsula housed in the Museo de La Plata, Argentina5
Each of the 443 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. 217 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 Squatinidae
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- RYO SATO from Hamamatsu, Shizuoka, Japan
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Squatinidae 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itSquatiniformes through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bonaparte 1838