Urolophus

Urolophus is a genus of round rays mostly native to the western Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, though one species occurs in the Pacific waters of the Mexican coast. Müller and Henle erected Urolophus in an 1837 issue of Bericht Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin. The name is derived from the Greek oura, meaning "tail", and lophos, meaning "crest". In Urolophus, the outer rims of the nostrils are not enlarged into lobes, but may form a small knob at the back.

Urolophus

Nick Long · CC BY-SA 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
UrolophidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Myliobatiformes
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Myliobatiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Myliobatiformes

Time the record covers

At least 47 million years on record.

The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Paleocene — about 0 of 12 occurrencesEocene — about 3 of 12 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 12 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 0 of 12 occurrencesPliocene — about 1 of 12 occurrencesPleistocene — about 7 of 12 occurrences57–55 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences55–53 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences53–51 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences51–50 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences50–48 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences29–27 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences27–25 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences25–23 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences3.8–1.9 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.9–0 Mya — about 7 occurrences48.07 Mya129 ka57 Mya0 Mya

12 occurrences of Urolophus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

12 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

Palos Verdes Sand — 34.00°N, 118.20°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.66°N, 117.90°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.74°N, 118.28°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.75°N, 118.29°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.64°N, 117.88°WSan Pedro — 33.75°N, 118.28°W

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The named rock units Urolophus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Urolophus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Urolophus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

784 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Urolophus, 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

10 references

Each of the 12 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 Urolophus

Credit
Nick Long
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Urolophus 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 itUrolophidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.