Chitinozoa

Chitinozoa are a group of flask-shaped, organic walled marine microfossils produced by an as yet unknown organism. Common from the Ordovician to Devonian periods, the millimetre-scale organisms are abundant in almost all types of marine sediment across the globe. This wide distribution, and their rapid pace of evolution, makes them valuable biostratigraphic markers.

A picture published with the record for Chitinozoa. What it shows has not been checked.

en:User:Verisimilus · CC BY 2.5 · 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
EukaryotaPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 219 million years on record.

The record covers at least 471.3 Mya to 251.902 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 477.1 Mya to 247 Mya.

Ordovician — about 38 of 199 occurrencesOrdovicianSilurian — about 140 of 199 occurrencesSilurianDevonian — about 17 of 199 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 0 of 199 occurrencesPermian — about 3 of 199 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 1 of 199 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 199 occurrences482–474 Mya — about 2 occurrences474–466 Mya — about 3 occurrences466–458 Mya — about 5 occurrences458–450 Mya — about 9 occurrences450–442 Mya — about 21 occurrences442–434 Mya — about 50 occurrences434–426 Mya — about 71 occurrences426–418 Mya — about 20 occurrences418–410 Mya — about 14 occurrences306–298 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences298–290 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences290–282 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences282–274 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences274–266 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences266–258 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences258–250 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences250–242 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences471.3 Mya251.902 Mya482 Mya242 Mya

199 occurrences of Chitinozoa on record, most of them in the Silurian. 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

199 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

42 formations

Jaani — 58.52°N, 24.68°EJaani — 58.62°N, 22.90°EVelise — 58.52°N, 24.68°EKopanina — 50.00°N, 14.35°EKopanina — 49.95°N, 12.93°EKopanina — 49.94°N, 14.05°EKopanina — 49.96°N, 14.17°EGarra — 32.64°S, 148.93°ESaarde — 58.32°N, 25.50°EEllis Bay — 49.80°N, 64.42°WRumba — 58.54°N, 23.44°EMotol — 50.07°N, 14.33°EMotol — 50.03°N, 14.42°ETernava Suite — 51.82°N, 34.22°ETernava Suite — 48.87°N, 26.53°ECedarburg — 32.30°S, 18.97°EPraha — 49.42°N, 15.86°EHulderstad — 58.84°N, 24.98°EMoe — 58.84°N, 24.98°ETamsalu — 58.80°N, 22.76°ETamsalu — 58.89°N, 23.46°EDawan — 30.86°N, 110.37°EGilwern Volcanic — 52.24°N, 3.38°WPozary — 50.00°N, 14.35°EPozary — 49.52°N, 13.50°EArqov — 31.60°N, 34.70°ESularp — 55.71°N, 13.32°EKorgessaare — 58.84°N, 24.98°ERaikküla — 58.80°N, 22.76°ERaikküla — 58.89°N, 23.46°EKhaastyrka — 67.35°N, 104.04°EKhaastyrka — 67.32°N, 103.85°ESularp Shale — 55.71°N, 13.32°EGualcamayo — 30.00°S, 69.00°W

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The named rock units Chitinozoa has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 18 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Chitinozoa and its relatives

Silurian

Where Chitinozoa and its relatives were recorded in the Silurian.

Found in the same rock

785 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 88 sites for Chitinozoa, 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

35 references

Each of the 199 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. 23 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 Chitinozoa

Credit
en:User:Verisimilus
Licence
CC BY 2.5
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 itEukaryota through timeFormations of the SilurianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Nõlvak 2007