Williamsonia

Williamsonia is a genus of plant belonging to Bennettitales, an extinct order of seed plants. Within the form classification system used in paleobotany, Williamsonia is used to refer to female seed cones, which are associated with plants that also bore the male flower-like reproductive structure Weltrichia.

Williamsonia

Morosaurus millenii · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
BennettitalesPBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta

Time the record covers

At least 128 million years on record.

The record covers at least 241.464 Mya to 113.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 247 Mya to 66 Mya.

Early Triassic — about 0 of 124 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 2 of 124 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 9 of 124 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 9 of 124 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 50 of 124 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 44 of 124 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 9 of 124 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 124 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 124 occurrences251–244 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences244–238 Mya — about 1 occurrence238–232 Mya — about 4 occurrences232–226 Mya — about 4 occurrences226–219 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences219–213 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences213–207 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences207–200 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences200–194 Mya — about 1 occurrence194–188 Mya — about 1 occurrence188–182 Mya — about 2 occurrences182–175 Mya — about 3 occurrences175–169 Mya — about 28 occurrences169–163 Mya — about 20 occurrences163–157 Mya — about 13 occurrences157–150 Mya — about 18 occurrences150–144 Mya — about 15 occurrences144–138 Mya — about 2 occurrences138–131 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences131–125 Mya — about 1 occurrence125–119 Mya — about 2 occurrences119–113 Mya — about 2 occurrences113–106 Mya — about 2 occurrences106–100 Mya — about 1 occurrence100–94 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences94–87 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences87–81 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences81–75 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences75–69 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences69–62 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences241.464 Mya113.2 Mya251 Mya62 Mya

124 occurrences of Williamsonia on record, most of them in the Middle Jurassic. 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

124 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

45 formations

Rajmahal — 25.14°N, 87.50°ERajmahal — 24.54°N, 87.57°ERajmahal — 25.23°N, 87.49°ERajmahal — 25.24°N, 87.71°EZorrillo — 17.60°N, 97.60°WZorrillo — 17.60°N, 97.80°WBhuj — 23.28°N, 69.36°EBhuj — 23.08°N, 69.60°EBhuj — 23.18°N, 69.38°EBhuj — 23.60°N, 69.00°EBhuj — 23.20°N, 69.56°EBhuj — 23.32°N, 69.77°ESaltwick — 54.50°N, 0.75°WSaltwick — 54.40°N, 1.00°WSaltwick — 54.33°N, 0.50°WSaltwick — 54.37°N, 1.25°WSaltwick — 54.49°N, 1.11°WSanta Clara — 28.55°N, 109.35°WSanta Clara — 28.55°N, 110.20°WSanta Clara — 28.60°N, 109.70°WRosario — 17.80°N, 98.20°WTecomazuchil — 17.80°N, 98.00°WTecomazuchil — 17.80°N, 98.10°WTecomazuchil — 18.20°N, 98.00°WBhuj (plus Jhuran in part?) — 23.40°N, 69.50°EKokala Suite — 44.30°N, 51.80°EKokala Suite — 44.10°N, 52.20°EPekin — 35.50°N, 79.40°WKamenka Suite — 49.10°N, 37.30°ECloughton — 54.17°N, 0.25°WParsora — 24.70°N, 87.40°EJabalpur — 23.11°N, 80.13°EChinle — 35.20°N, 108.20°WSimon — 17.80°N, 97.80°WConglomerado Cualac — 17.90°N, 99.00°WLuscar? Mountain Park? — 49.50°N, 114.40°WLa Huérguina — 40.06°N, 1.88°WSteierdorf — 45.08°N, 21.85°EIshpushta — 35.30°N, 68.20°EMount Flora — 63.40°S, 57.00°WLotena — 40.00°S, 70.10°WXingmingbao — 42.00°N, 123.00°E

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The named rock units Williamsonia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 21 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 26 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Williamsonia and its relatives

Middle Jurassic

Where Williamsonia and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

914 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 78 sites for Williamsonia, 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

50 references

Each of the 124 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. 38 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 Williamsonia

Credit
Morosaurus millenii
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itBennettitales through timeFormations of the Middle JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Carruthers 1870