Venustodus

Venustodus is an extinct genus of cartilaginous fish from the Carboniferous of Russia and the United States. It has been assigned either to the family Cochliodontidae or an indeterminate position within the subclass Holocephali, although in 1984 researcher Rainer Zangerl insisted that nothing is known of the genus' classification and that it may be unrelated to holocephalans. All species of Venustodus are believed to have been nektonic, marine carnivores.

Venustodus

National Museum of Natural History · CC0 · 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
CochliodontidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Cochliodontiformes
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Cochliodontiformes
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Cochliodontiformes

Time the record covers

At least 15 million years on record.

The record covers at least 330.3 Mya to 315.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 346.7 Mya to 307 Mya.

Carboniferous — about 2 of 2 occurrencesCarboniferous347–346 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences346–345 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences345–343 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences343–342 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences342–341 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences341–339 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences339–338 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences338–336 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences336–335 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences335–334 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences334–332 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences332–331 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences331–330 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences316–314 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences314–313 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences313–312 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences312–310 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences310–309 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences309–308 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences308–306 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences330.3 Mya315.2 Mya347.5 Mya306.2 Mya

2 occurrences of Venustodus 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

2 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

1 formation

Naco — 34.33°N, 111.12°W

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The named rock units Venustodus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Venustodus and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Venustodus and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

42 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Venustodus, 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

2 references

Each of the 2 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 Venustodus

Credit
National Museum of Natural History
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Venustodus 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 itCochliodontidae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. St. John and Worthen 1875