Strepsodus
Strepsodus is a genus of rhizodont lobe-finned fish that lived throughout the Carboniferous period. Fossils have been found in eastern Canada, Britain, and Queensland, Australia; indeterminate species of Strepsodus have also been found in the late Devonian deposits of Turkey, Iran and Colombia. A large individual is measured up to 3.5 metres (11.5 ft) long.

the paleobear from Lontananza, Loreto, Peru · CC BY 2.0 · 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
- RhizodontidaePBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Time the record covers
At least 24 million years on record.
The record covers at least 339.9 Mya to 315.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 346.7 Mya to 298.9 Mya.
19 occurrences of Strepsodus on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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
19 occurrences- Carboniferous100%
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
- Heath Formation · Big Snowy Group2
- Pennine Lower Coal Measures Formation2
- Bluefield Formation1
- Glencartholm Volcanic Beds Formation · Upper Border Group1
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The named rock units Strepsodus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 13 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Strepsodus and its relatives
CarboniferousWhere Strepsodus and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.
Found in the same rock
96 taxa- Pleuracanthus laevissimus6 sites
- Pleuracanthus cylindricus4 sites
- Pleuroplax rankinei4 sites
- Ctenoptychius apicalis3 sites
- Diplodus tenuis3 sites
- Janassa bituminosa3 sites
- Rhadinichthys3 sites
- Rhizodopsis sauroides3 sites
- Acanthodes wardi2 sites
- Elonichthys2 sites
- Euctenius unilateralis2 sites
- Fubarichthyiformes2 sites
- Helodus simplex2 sites
- Orthacanthus gibbosus2 sites
- Platysomus2 sites
- Sagenodus inaequalis2 sites
- Acanthodes1 site
- Acanthodes nitidus1 site
- Acanthodopsis wardi1 site
- Acrolepis ortholepis1 site
- Adelophthalmus perornatus1 site
- Aesopichthys erinaceus1 site
- Amphicentrum1 site
- Antliodus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Strepsodus, 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
6 references- Catalogue of the Fossil Fishes in the British Museum (Natural History). Part II12
- Fish diversity of the Bear Gulch Limestone, Namurian, Lower Carboniferous of Montana, USA2
- Fish Remains from the North Wales Coalfield2
- Fossil Fishes of Great Britain1
- Isolated tetrapod remains from the Carboniferous of West Virginia1
- On the occurence of the palatal teeth of a fish belonging to the Genus Climaxodus, M'Coy, in the Low-main Shale of Newsham1
Each of the 19 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 Strepsodus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- the paleobear from Lontananza, Loreto, Peru
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Strepsodus was found in Smithsonian Open Access and Sketchfab.
MorphoSource was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Strepsodus”
- 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 itRhizodontidae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Huxley and Etheridge 1865