Amphissites
Amphissites is an extinct genus of ostracod belonging to the suborder Beyrichicopina and family Amphissitinae. Species belonging to the genus lived from the Devonian to the Permian in Europe, North America, Australia, and east Asia. The genus were likely deposit-feeders, and may have survived briefly into the Triassic.

Carolyn Bartlett · Public Domain · 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
- AmphissitidaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Palaeocopida
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Palaeocopida
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Ostracoda
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Ostracoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Ostracoda
Time the record covers
At least 139 million years on record.
The record covers at least 393.47 Mya to 254.14 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 399.5 Mya to 251.902 Mya.
167 occurrences of Amphissites 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
167 occurrences- Devonian20%
- Carboniferous51%
- Permian29%
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
55 formations
- Johns Valley Formation22
- Shanda Horizon Formation12
- Wewoka Formation10
- Henrietta Formation9
- Holmwood Formation8
- Salem Limestone Formation4
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The named rock units Amphissites has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 31 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 30 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Amphissites and its relatives
CarboniferousWhere Amphissites and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.
Found in the same rock
1,575 taxa- Bairdia50 sites
- Healdia30 sites
- Kirkbya29 sites
- Crinoidea24 sites
- Cavellina22 sites
- Hollinella22 sites
- Bairdiacypris18 sites
- Bryozoa17 sites
- Acratia14 sites
- Echinoidea14 sites
- Ostracoda14 sites
- Ammodiscus13 sites
- Bairdia beedei13 sites
- Microcheilinella13 sites
- Bairdiocypris12 sites
- Fenestella12 sites
- Meekospira peracuta12 sites
- Plagioglypta12 sites
- Chonetes11 sites
- Euphemites carbonarius11 sites
- Pseudobythocypris pediformis11 sites
- Anthraconeilo taffiana10 sites
- Asteroidea10 sites
- Bathysiphon10 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 127 sites for Amphissites, 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
54 references- Micropaleontology of the Pennsylvanian Johns Valley shale of the Ouachita Mountains, Oklahoma, and its relationship to the Mississippian Caney shale22
- Facies and faunal associations of the Telengitian (Emsian) in its type locality12
- Some Pennsylvanian Ostracodes from the Henrietta Formation of Eastern Missouri. Part I11
- Upper Paleozoic ostracodes of the Harper Ranch beds (south-central British Columbia, Canada)10
- Marine Communities of a Portion of the Wewoka Formation (Pennsylvanian) in Hughes County, Oklahoma10
- Ostracode and foraminiferal taxonomy and paleoecology of the Holmwood Shale, northern Perth Basin, Western Australia8
- Oekologie und Fazies des juengsten Ober-Devon von Velbert (Rheinisches Schiefergebirge)7
- Kirkbyacea and Bairdiacea (Ostracoda) from the Palaeozoic of China6
- The Pennsylvanian (Moscovian) Izvarino Section, Donets Basin, Ukraine: a multidisciplinary study on microfacies, biostratigraphy (conodonts, foraminifers, and ostracodes), and paleoecology5
- Ostracods and fore-reef sedimentology of the Frasnian-Famennian boundary beds in Kielce (Holy Cross Mountains, Poland)5
- Ostracodes of the Upper Pennsylvanian and the Lower Permian strata of Kansas: I. the Aparchitidae, Beyrichiidae, Glyptopleuridae, Kloedenellidae, Kirkbyiidae, and Youngiellidae5
- Ostracodes from the Upper Permian and Lower Triassic at the Kongtongshan section of Datian, Fujian4
Each of the 167 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. 42 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 Amphissites
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Carolyn Bartlett
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Amphissites was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access 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, “Amphissites”
- 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 itAmphissitidae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Girty 1910