Calpionellida

Calpionellids are an extinct group of eukaryotic single celled organisms of uncertain affinities. Their fossils are found in marine rocks of Upper Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous age. They were planktonic organisms with urn-shaped, calcitic tests that had a widespread distribution across the Tethys Ocean from the late Tithonian to the early Valanginian and were characterised by rapid evolution, and their abundant remains in deep sea sediments from this interval are important as they allow long distance biostratigraphic correlation and precise dating. Calpionellids were not confined to the Tethys, as they have also been found in the Vaca Muerta of northern Patagonia, in what was then the southeastern Pacific. Calpionellids are divided into two main families, the Chitinoidellidae, which are the earliest members of the group, appearing in the mid Tithonian, characterised by microgranular lorica. Calpionellidae appear later, including widespread genera such as Calpionella and Calpionellites, and have combined microgranular and hyaline lorica. A third family, the Semichitinoidellidae are sometimes recognised.

Calpionellida

Engeser · CC BY-SA 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
CiliophoraPBDB
Life habit
planktonicPBDB
Motility
passively mobilePBDB
Environment
outer shelf,oceanic,oligotrophic,marinePBDB

Time the record covers

At least 131 million years on record.

The record covers at least 145.06 Mya to 13.82 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 149.2 Mya to 12.8 Mya.

Late Jurassic — about 17 of 257 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 239 of 257 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 257 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 257 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 257 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 257 occurrencesMiocene — about 1 of 257 occurrencesMiocene152–147 Mya — about 1 occurrence147–142 Mya — about 30 occurrences142–138 Mya — about 111 occurrences138–133 Mya — about 105 occurrences133–128 Mya — about 9 occurrences15–10 Mya — about 1 occurrence145.06 Mya13.82 Mya152 Mya10 Mya

257 occurrences of Calpionellida on record, most of them in the Early 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

257 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

10 formations

Miravetes — 38.09°N, 1.89°WMiravetes — 38.07°N, 1.81°WSteinmühl — 47.91°N, 14.35°ETollo — 38.07°N, 1.81°WGuasasa — 22.60°N, 83.78°WGuasasa — 22.67°N, 83.75°WGuasasa — 22.67°N, 83.55°WLapos — 46.80°N, 25.80°ELapos — 46.95°N, 25.90°EArgiles de Lamoriciere — 34.90°N, 1.03°WStramberk — 49.58°N, 18.12°EAbenaki — 43.69°N, 60.83°WArgiles de Ghriss — 35.25°N, 0.15°ELithothamnion limestone — 45.19°N, 16.37°E

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The named rock units Calpionellida has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 34 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Calpionellida and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Calpionellida and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

152 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 88 sites for Calpionellida, 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

12 references

Each of the 257 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 Calpionellida

Credit
Engeser
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
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 itCiliophora through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.