#ceratodus

[princefluph]

Second page of Paleo Pines style prehistoric critters! All of these are requests this time around

[mesozoicmarket]

A Cretaceous lungfish tooth plate of a Neoceratodus africanus or Ceratodus sp. from the Elrhaz Formation in Gadoufaoua, Niger. These giant Mesozoic lungfish would have been prey for genera like Suchomimus tenerensis and Sarcosuchus imperator.

[makairodonx]

Dinovember 2024 Day 12: Enigma in Egypt

[transparentfossil]

.95" Cretaceous Lungfish (Ceratodus) Tooth Plate - Morocco

[252mya]

A lovely diorama illustrating an environment from the Morrison Formation. It features the enormous Brachiosaurus and a few pterosaurs! Design by Stieven Van der Poorten sulc.us/morri

[imshrimple]

a watercolor painting of a spinosaurus and ceratodus i did as well as a drawing of a triceratops :] if you didn't know by now i really like paleontology as it has been a massive interest of mine throughout my whole life so i like drawing dinosaurs sometimes! might post some more doodles of them later

[wtf-triassic]

Ceratodus

By Ripley Cook

Etymology: Horn tooth

First Described By: Agassiz, 1837

Classification: Biota, Archaea, Proteoarchaeota, Asgardarchaeota, Eukaryota, Neokaryota, Scotokaryota, Opimoda, Podiata, Amorphea, Obazoa, Opisthokonta, Holozoa, Filozoa, Choanozoa, Animalia, Eumetazoa, Parahoxozoa, Bilateria, Nephrozoa, Deuterostomia, Chordata, Olfactores, Vertebrata, Craniata, Gnathostomata, Eugnathostomata, Osteichthyes, Sarcopterygii, Rhipidistia, Dipnoi, Ceratodontiformes, Ceratodontidae

Referred Species: C. africanus, C. carteri, C. diutinus, C. elegans, C. eruciferus, C. felchi, C. fossanovum, C frazieri, C. guentheri, C. gustasoni, C. hierogyphus, C. humei, C. kempae, C. kranzi, C. latissimus, C. molossus, C. nirumbee, C. robustus, C. stewarti, C. szechuanensis, C. texanus, C. tunuensis

Status: Extinct 

Time and Place: 252 to 55 million years ago, from the Induan of the Early Triassic to the Ypresian of the Eocene.

Ceratodus is known from the United States, Peru, Uruguay, Greenland, Svalbard, South Africa, Madagascar, Morocco, Libya, Mali, Niger, Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, France, Spain, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, England, Russia, India, Mongolia, Thailand, and Australia.

Physical Description: Ceratodus is... a lungfish. Most of the fossil remains are distinctively-shaped teeth. These teeth are multicusped and in life would be incorporated into a solid crushing surface with other tissues in the mouth. Externally it would have looked very much like the Queensland lungfish. In fact, it used to be considered a species of Ceratodus, until it was moved to the genus Neoceratodus in 1977. Ceratodontiform morphology has changed little in the intervening time. Look at a lungfish and you know what Ceratodus was like.

Diet: Ceratodus would have eaten fish, small amphibians, a variety of invertebrates, and possibly plant matter, much like its living relative.

Behavior: Ceratodus is probably best compared to a fallen log. It would have sat quietly at the bottom of calm waters, waiting for food to come on by. It was likely primarily nocturnal, and more mobile at night. As a lungfish, it would have been able to breathe air, and thus would be able to survive its habitat drying up. Going off its modern relatives, it may have been able to live for absurdly long periods of time if left alone - captive Queensland lungfish can and have reached their 90’s.

Ecosystem: Ceratodus fossils are known from pretty much everywhere. In the Triassic, Ceratodus is known from North America, Europe, western Asia, India, and Australia. Most Ceratodus-bearing habitats were marshlands or other calm freshwater environments. Other Ceratodus-bearing sites are marine, meaning the Ceratodus found there were probably washed out to sea. The seasonal wetlands Ceratodus probably favored were also frequented by sharks such as Hybodus and xenacanthids, ray-finned fish, temnospondyls, and phytosaurs. The exact species vary by location; in North America, Ceratodus lived alongside phytosaurs like Rutiodon and Smilosuchus, while in Eurasia temnospondyls such as Metoposaurus and Cyclotosaurus were more common. Of course, many land-living animals would have come by these rivers to drink, such as cynodonts, rhynchosaurs, pseudosuchians, and early dinosaurs. To go more in-depth would make this article three times as large as it currently is.

Other: There’s a town in Queensland called Ceratodus.

~ By Henry Thomas

Sources under the Cut

Case, E.C. 1921. A new species of Ceratodus from the Upper Triassic of western Texas. Occasional Papers of the Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan 101: 1-4.

Gunther, A.C.L.G. 1871. Description of Ceratodus, a genus of ganoid fishes, recently discovered in rivers of Queensland, Australia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 161: 511-571.

Kemp, A. 1993. Ceratodus diutinus, a new ceratodont from Cretaceous and Late Oligocene-medial Miocene deposits in Autralia. Journal of Paleontology 67 (5): 883-888.

Martin, M, Ingavat, R. 1982. First record of an upper Triassic ceratodontid (Dipnoi, Ceratodontiformes) in Thailand and its paleogeographical significance. Geobios 15 (1): 111-114.

http://www.paleobiodb.org

[sargassos]

A belated day 25 for Dinovember, a Spinosaurus catching a large neoceratodus in the shallows.

I’m only behind by one now, but its a microraptor and he’s superfeathered. I’m a bit tired out today, so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to catch that one up and finish the day’s dino, Centrosaurus. I’m gonna try, but either way, it’ll all get done eventually. Only a few more dinos to go and this coloring book will be complete.