Bolboporites

Bolboporites is an enigmatic echinoderm fossil from the Ordovician of Europe and North America. It was once thought to be an unusual eocrinoid living on the seafloor with the pointed end of the cone down in the sediment, and a single brachiole extending from a hole in the upper surface. However, a recent re-assessment concluded that it is most likely a spine from an unknown echinoderm, possibly of primitive, non-echinoid echinozoan affinities. It likely diversified in the Baltic region and then migrated to North America.

Bolboporites

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
EocrinoideaPBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB, for Eocrinoidea
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Eocrinoidea
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB, for Eocrinoidea
Vision
blindPBDB, for Eocrinoidea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Echinodermata

Time the record covers

At least 3.2 million years on record.

The record covers at least 464.3 Mya to 461.1 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 471.3 Mya to 457.3 Mya.

Ordovician — about 20 of 20 occurrencesOrdovician471–471 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences471–470 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences470–470 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences470–469 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences469–469 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences469–468 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences468–468 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences468–467 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences467–467 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences467–466 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences466–466 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences466–465 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences465–465 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences465–464 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences464–464 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences464–463 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences463–463 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences463–462 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences462–462 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences462–461 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences461–461 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences461–460 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences460–460 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences460–459 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences459–459 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences459–458 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences458–458 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences458–457 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences464.3 Mya461.1 Mya471.8 Mya456.8 Mya

20 occurrences of Bolboporites on record, most of them in the Ordovician. 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

20 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

9 formations

Day Point — 44.61°N, 73.41°WDay Point — 44.94°N, 73.45°WMingan — 50.20°N, 63.50°WMingan — 50.20°N, 63.67°WValcour — 44.89°N, 73.44°WDay Point — 50.20°N, 63.50°WCrown Point — 50.20°N, 63.50°WLaval — 47.00°N, 72.00°WCrown Point — 44.61°N, 73.41°WObukhovo — 59.87°N, 31.43°EAylmer — 45.57°N, 73.53°W

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The named rock units Bolboporites has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Bolboporites and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Bolboporites and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

161 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 20 sites for Bolboporites, 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

6 references

Each of the 20 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. 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 Bolboporites

Credit
Wilson44691
Licence
Public Domain
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 itEocrinoidea through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Pander 1830