Aulopora
Aulopora is an extinct genus of tabulate coral characterized by a bifurcated budding pattern and conical corallites. Colonies commonly encrust hard substrates such as rocks, shells and carbonate hardgrounds.

Wilson44691 · 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
- AuloporidaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Auloporida
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Auloporida
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Auloporida
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Anthozoa
Time the record covers
At least 192 million years on record.
The record covers at least 457.2 Mya to 264.28 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 458.2 Mya to 259.857 Mya.
305 occurrences of Aulopora on record, most of them in the Devonian. 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
305 occurrences- Ordovician4%
- Silurian15%
- Devonian69%
- Carboniferous9%
- Permian3%
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
129 formations
- Geneseo Formation · Genesee Group19
- Silica Formation · Traverse Group16
- Onondaga Formation11
- Martin Formation10
- Tin Mountain Formation9
- Moscow Formation · Hamilton Group7
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The named rock units Aulopora has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 105 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 29 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Aulopora and its relatives
DevonianWhere Aulopora and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.
Found in the same rock
2,483 taxa- Crinoidea82 sites
- Favosites57 sites
- Thamnopora54 sites
- Alveolites42 sites
- Rugosa42 sites
- Bryozoa38 sites
- Stromatoporoidea33 sites
- Syringopora32 sites
- Devonochonetes scitulus31 sites
- Athyris30 sites
- Tentaculites30 sites
- Heliolites29 sites
- Ostracoda29 sites
- Atrypa reticularis28 sites
- Fenestella28 sites
- Spirifer28 sites
- Eldredgeops rana27 sites
- Chonetes26 sites
- Cyrtina hamiltonensis26 sites
- Schizophoria26 sites
- Platyceras25 sites
- Rhipidomella25 sites
- Trilobita25 sites
- Aulocystis24 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 252 sites for Aulopora, and this reads 240 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
128 references- Work with Thayer collections, Yale Peabody Accession 7112, published, in part, "New perspectives on transitions between ecological-evolutionary subunits in the "type interval" for coordinated stasis", James J Zambito IV, Carlton E Brett, Gordon C Baird, Sarah E Kolbe, Arnold I Miller; Paleobiology18
- Silurian Reefs of Gotland14
- Community paleoecological study of the Silica Shale equivalent of northeastern Indiana12
- Tabules Auloporida du Givetian at du Frasnian de Ferques (Boulonnais-France)11
- Zur stratigraphischen Verteilung tabulater Korallen im Mittel-Devon der Sötenicher Mulde (Rheinisches Schiefergebirge, Nord-Eifel)10
- A Faunal Analysis of the Devonian Martin Formation in the Verde Valley, Arizona10
- Devonian corals from the Canning Basin, Western Australia9
- Testing for faunal stability across a regional biotic transition: quantifying stasis and variation among recurring coral-rich biofacies in the Middle Devonian Appalachian Basin7
- Stratigraphy of the Onondaga Limestone in Central New York7
- The Incommunicate Tabulata of Estonia6
- Late Frasnian phillipsastreid biostromes in Belgium5
- Late Ordovician articulate brachiopods from central New South Wales, Australia5
Each of the 305 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. 116 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 content2
Picture of Aulopora
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Wilson44691
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- UIPaleoRepository
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Aulopora”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
Everything alive alongside itAuloporidae through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Goldfuss 1829