Calcidiscus leptoporus
Calcidiscus leptoporus is a coccolithophore species found extensively globally both in the oceans and in the fossil record, which dates back to the Early Miocene. C. leptoporus, like all coccolithophores, is a unicellular marine phytoplankton within the phylum Haptophyta, which is surrounded by calcium carbonate plates called coccoliths.

Grażyna M. Durak, Alison R. Taylor, Charlotte E. Walker, Ian Probert, Colomban de Vargas, Stephane Audic, Declan Schr… · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
- CalcidiscusPBDB
- Diet
- "photoautotroph"PBDB, for Haptophyta
- Life habit
- planktonic, depth=surfacePBDB, for Haptophyta
- Motility
- passively mobilePBDB, for Haptophyta
- Environment
- oceanic,oligotrophic,marine,brackishPBDB, for Haptophyta
Time the record covers
At least 33 million years on record.
The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 66 Mya to 0 Mya.
4,585 occurrences of Calcidiscus leptoporus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
4,585 occurrencesThese 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
5 formations
- Quilon Limestone Formation · Warkalli Group1
- Blue Clay Formation1
- Map Formation1
- Monterey Formation1
- Formación Coquimbo Formation1
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The named rock units Calcidiscus leptoporus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4,580 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Calcidiscus leptoporus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Calcidiscus leptoporus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
223 taxa- Coccolithus pelagicus183 sites
- Helicosphaera carteri142 sites
- Umbilicosphaera142 sites
- Reticulofenestra122 sites
- Reticulofenestra pseudoumbilicus121 sites
- Discoaster114 sites
- Cyclicargolithus floridanus111 sites
- Sphenolithus moriformis106 sites
- Gephyrocapsa102 sites
- Discoaster deflandrei96 sites
- Pseudoemiliania88 sites
- Discoaster variabilis71 sites
- Discoaster brouweri66 sites
- Florisphaera66 sites
- Coccolithus65 sites
- Coronocyclus63 sites
- Pontosphaera63 sites
- Calcidiscus macintyrei62 sites
- Triquetrorhabdulus62 sites
- Rhabdosphaera59 sites
- Sphenolithus abies57 sites
- Syracosphaera54 sites
- Reticulofenestra minuta53 sites
- Umbilicosphaera jafari48 sites
The Paleobiology Database records at least 2,000 sites for Calcidiscus leptoporus, 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
132 references- Site U1389188
- Site U1387180
- Site U1352175
- Site U1456144
- Site U1390129
- Site U1474128
- Site U1437128
- Site U1471117
- Site U1386116
- Site U1391112
- Site U1338101
- Site U145798
Each of the 4,585 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. 120 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 Calcidiscus leptoporus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Grażyna M. Durak, Alison R. Taylor, Charlotte E. Walker, Ian Probert, Colomban de Vargas, Stephane Audic, Declan Schr…
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Calcidiscus leptoporus 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 itCalcidiscus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Murray and Blackman 1898)