Belemnitella bulbosa
Belemnitella bulbosa is a species of belemnite from the Late Cretaceous of North America. It is known only from two localities - the Pierre Shale and Fox Hills Formations. B. bulbosa had a slender somewhat cylindrical rostrum (guard) with a slightly expanded front opening. Like other members of the genus Belemnitella, it had a dorsal ridge on the rostrum. The phragmocone is about the same size or slightly longer than the rostrum and has an oval cross-section.

via iDigBio · CC0 · via iDigBio. 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
- BelemnitellaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Belemnitida
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda
Time the record covers
At most 6.2 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 72.2 Mya and 66 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
4 occurrences of Belemnitella bulbosa on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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
4 occurrences- Late Cretaceous100%
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
2 formations
- Pierre Shale Formation · Montana Group2
- Fox Hills Formation2
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The named rock units Belemnitella bulbosa has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Belemnitella bulbosa and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Belemnitella bulbosa and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
80 taxa- Baculites4 sites
- Actinosepia canadensis2 sites
- Crenella elegantula2 sites
- Cucullaea nebrascensis2 sites
- Cuspidaria ventricosa2 sites
- Cymbophora warrenana2 sites
- Discoscaphites conradi2 sites
- Discoscaphites gulosus2 sites
- Drepanochilus2 sites
- Glossus moreauensis2 sites
- Goniomya americana2 sites
- Grammatodon (Cosmetodon) sulcatinus2 sites
- Graphidula2 sites
- Hoploparia2 sites
- Hoploscaphites comprimus2 sites
- Hoploscaphites nicolletii2 sites
- Malletia evansi2 sites
- Modiolus galpinianus2 sites
- Modiolus meeki2 sites
- Nucula cancellata2 sites
- Nucula planomarginata2 sites
- Nuculana (Nuculana) grandensis2 sites
- Nymphalucina occidentalis2 sites
- Ostrea translucida2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Belemnitella bulbosa, 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- Scaphitid ammonites of the Upper Cretaceous (Maastrichtian) Fox Hills Formation in South Dakota and Wyoming3
- USGS Locality Compendium1
Each of the 4 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1

Picture of Belemnitella bulbosa
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Belemnitella bulbosa 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 itBelemnitella through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Meek and Hayden 1856