Calamites

Calamites is a genus of extinct arborescent (tree-like) horsetails to which the modern horsetails are closely related. Unlike their herbaceous modern cousins, these plants were medium-sized trees, growing to heights of 30–50 meters (98–164 ft). They were components of the understories of coal swamps of the Carboniferous Period.

Calamites

Verisimilus · CC BY 3.0 · 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
CalamitaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta

Time the record covers

At least 148 million years on record.

The record covers at least 323.4 Mya to 174.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 358.86 Mya to 170.9 Mya.

Devonian — about 0 of 359 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 202 of 359 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 133 of 359 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 3 of 359 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 15 of 359 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 5 of 359 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 359 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 1 of 359 occurrences363–356 Mya — about 5 occurrences356–350 Mya — about 12 occurrences350–343 Mya — about 12 occurrences343–337 Mya — about 12 occurrences337–330 Mya — about 12 occurrences330–324 Mya — about 13 occurrences324–317 Mya — about 40 occurrences317–310 Mya — about 28 occurrences310–304 Mya — about 36 occurrences304–297 Mya — about 37 occurrences297–291 Mya — about 27 occurrences291–284 Mya — about 22 occurrences284–278 Mya — about 14 occurrences278–271 Mya — about 14 occurrences271–265 Mya — about 15 occurrences265–258 Mya — about 15 occurrences258–252 Mya — about 19 occurrences252–245 Mya — about 8 occurrences245–239 Mya — about 10 occurrences239–232 Mya — about 2 occurrences232–226 Mya — about 1 occurrence206–200 Mya — about 3 occurrences180–174 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences174–167 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences323.4 Mya174.7 Mya363 Mya167 Mya

359 occurrences of Calamites 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

359 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

99 formations

Pottsville — 33.82°N, 87.42°WPottsville — 33.00°N, 87.00°WPottsville — 33.81°N, 87.17°WBurgersdorp — 30.68°S, 26.72°EBurgersdorp — 31.00°S, 27.00°EBurgersdorp — 30.72°S, 26.65°EBurgersdorp — 31.00°S, 26.00°EBurgersdorp — 31.00°S, 26.33°EBurgersdorp — 31.67°S, 27.33°ETaiyuan — 39.90°N, 111.80°ETaiyuan — 35.50°N, 110.40°ETaiyuan — 40.00°N, 116.20°ETaiyuan — 39.60°N, 111.00°ETaiyuan — 34.70°N, 116.60°ETaiyuan — 38.80°N, 99.60°ETaiyuan — 34.20°N, 113.50°ETaiyuan — 38.80°N, 105.60°EBreathitt — 37.08°N, 83.70°WShanxi — 41.80°N, 126.50°EShanxi — 34.20°N, 113.50°EShanxi — 38.80°N, 105.60°EShanxi — 38.80°N, 99.60°EShanxi — 38.50°N, 102.20°EShanxi — 36.80°N, 118.10°EGastrioceras cumbriense Marine Band — 53.65°N, 2.65°WGastrioceras cumbriense Marine Band — 53.58°N, 2.43°WGastrioceras cumbriense Marine Band — 53.70°N, 2.30°WGastrioceras cumbriense Marine Band — 53.72°N, 2.08°WMospyne — 48.23°N, 39.21°EMospyne — 48.24°N, 39.34°EHonaker Trail — 38.57°N, 109.55°WDrywood — 38.00°N, 93.00°WMiminegash — 46.89°N, 64.21°WSearston Beds — 47.80°N, 59.40°WHeilgenwalder Schichten — 49.28°N, 6.80°EKildare Capes — 46.30°N, 63.10°WFountain — 38.40°N, 105.22°WNocona — 33.68°N, 98.70°WMahoning — 40.70°N, 80.65°WManning Canyon Shale — 40.28°N, 112.15°WVandever Shale & Rockcastle Sandstone — 34.86°N, 85.43°WMinto — 46.08°N, 66.08°WCrab Orchard Mountains — 34.00°N, 85.00°WSupai — 34.20°N, 111.00°WLawrence Shale — 38.77°N, 95.18°WBrazil — 39.13°N, 87.02°WDamiaozhuang — 39.60°N, 118.30°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Calamites has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 75 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 142 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Calamites and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Calamites and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

847 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 224 sites for Calamites, 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

121 references

Each of the 359 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. 109 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 Calamites

Credit
Verisimilus
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Calamites 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 itCalamitaceae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Suckow 1784