Coelosmilia

Coelosmilia is a genus of extinct scleractinian coral from the Late Cretaceous period. The specimens were found in rocks around 70 million years old dating from the Late Cretaceous of the Mesozoic Era. Coelosmilia is similar to modern-day scleractinians, except for the composition of its calcitic, non-aragonitic skeleton. It is the only known scleractinian so far to have an entirely calcitic skeleton.

Coelosmilia

via iDigBio · via iDigBio. 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
CaryophylliidaePBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB
Vision
blindPBDB, for Anthozoa
Environment
marinePBDB, for Scleractinia

Time the record covers

At least 117 million years on record.

The record covers at least 165.3 Mya to 48.07 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 168.2 Mya to 41.03 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 1 of 19 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 1 of 19 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 11 of 19 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 3 of 19 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 2 of 19 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 19 occurrencesEocene171–166 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences166–162 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences153–149 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences149–144 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences113–109 Mya — about 3 occurrences109–105 Mya — about 7 occurrences105–100 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences100–96 Mya — about 1 occurrence96–91 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences74–69 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences69–65 Mya — about 1 occurrence65–61 Mya — about 2 occurrences52–47 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences47–43 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences43–38 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences165.3 Mya48.07 Mya171 Mya38 Mya

19 occurrences of Coelosmilia on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

19 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

11 formations

Kiamichi — 34.07°N, 102.85°WKiamichi — 33.12°N, 101.82°WKiamichi — 33.92°N, 102.47°WWalnut — 30.37°N, 97.77°WWalnut — 31.58°N, 100.38°WGoodland Limestone — 32.72°N, 97.37°WGoodland Limestone — 33.42°N, 97.35°WEdwards Limestone — 31.13°N, 105.48°WEdwards Limestone — 30.25°N, 97.77°WMassenkalk — 48.68°N, 10.22°EPatcham — 23.52°N, 69.00°EDel Norte — 31.45°N, 106.55°WOpoka — 51.33°N, 21.97°EBruderndorf — 48.47°N, 16.30°ETucumcari — 35.11°N, 103.33°WBranderfleck — 47.63°N, 11.67°E

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The named rock units Coelosmilia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Coelosmilia and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

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

Found in the same rock

402 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Coelosmilia, 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

11 references

Each of the 19 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 Coelosmilia

Source
iDigBio
Credit
via iDigBio
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Coelosmilia 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 itCaryophylliidae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Milne-Edwards and Haime 1850