Conodonta

Searched as Conodonta indet.. The Paleobiology Database treats Conodonta as the accepted name.

Conodonts are an extinct group of marine jawless vertebrates belonging to the class Conodonta. They are primarily known from their hard, mineralised tooth-like structures called "conodont elements" that in life were present in the oral cavity and used to process food. Rare soft tissue remains suggest that they had elongate eel-like bodies with large eyes. Conodonts were a long-lasting group with over 300 million years of existence from the Cambrian to the beginning of the Jurassic. Conodont elements are highly distinctive to particular species and are widely used in biostratigraphy as indicative of particular periods of geological time.

Conodonta

Rexroad, Carl Buckner, 1925- · No restrictions · 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
Also called
conodontPBDB
Sits inside
ConodontophoridaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
nektonicPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB
Vision
well-developedPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 300 million years on record.

The record covers at least 499.5 Mya to 199.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 504.5 Mya to 184.2 Mya.

Cambrian — about 6 of 313 occurrencesOrdovician — about 93 of 313 occurrencesOrdovicianSilurian — about 29 of 313 occurrencesDevonian — about 71 of 313 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 56 of 313 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 2 of 313 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 11 of 313 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 34 of 313 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 9 of 313 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 2 of 313 occurrences511–500 Mya — about 2 occurrences500–489 Mya — about 3 occurrences489–478 Mya — about 13 occurrences478–466 Mya — about 23 occurrences466–455 Mya — about 33 occurrences455–444 Mya — about 25 occurrences444–433 Mya — about 6 occurrences433–422 Mya — about 20 occurrences422–411 Mya — about 41 occurrences411–400 Mya — about 6 occurrences400–389 Mya — about 9 occurrences389–378 Mya — about 9 occurrences378–367 Mya — about 7 occurrences367–355 Mya — about 9 occurrences355–344 Mya — about 10 occurrences344–333 Mya — about 3 occurrences333–322 Mya — about 8 occurrences322–311 Mya — about 6 occurrences311–300 Mya — about 20 occurrences300–289 Mya — about 3 occurrences289–278 Mya — about 2 occurrences256–244 Mya — about 25 occurrences244–233 Mya — about 21 occurrences233–222 Mya — about 3 occurrences222–211 Mya — about 2 occurrences211–200 Mya — about 3 occurrences200–189 Mya — about 1 occurrence189–178 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences499.5 Mya199.5 Mya511 Mya178 Mya

313 occurrences of Conodonta on record, most of them in the Ordovician. 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

313 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

104 formations

Antelope Valley — 36.88°N, 116.66°WAntelope Valley — 39.23°N, 116.41°WAntelope Valley — 39.02°N, 116.70°WAntelope Valley — 39.07°N, 116.72°WAntelope Valley — 36.76°N, 115.76°WSalmontrout Limestone — 65.00°N, 141.00°WKopanina — 49.95°N, 12.93°EKopanina — 49.94°N, 14.05°EKopanina — 49.96°N, 14.17°ENew Albany Shale — 38.48°N, 85.75°WNew Albany Shale — 38.50°N, 85.59°WNew Albany Shale — 38.67°N, 85.67°WNew Albany Shale — 39.00°N, 86.00°WGull River — 46.17°N, 83.92°WBac Thuy — 21.72°N, 106.67°EBac Thuy — 21.84°N, 106.73°ELuolou — 25.61°N, 106.63°EKaki Bukit — 6.43°N, 99.87°EKechika — 57.70°N, 124.58°WKechika — 57.87°N, 124.08°WKindblade — 34.92°N, 98.73°WKindblade — 34.38°N, 96.93°WKindblade — 34.37°N, 97.13°WKindblade — 34.42°N, 97.27°WOread Limestone — 38.39°N, 95.62°WOread Limestone — 38.84°N, 95.39°WOread Limestone — 39.01°N, 95.30°WOread Limestone — 38.92°N, 95.25°WOread Limestone — 38.78°N, 95.19°WDenley Limestone — 43.21°N, 75.46°WSlaty Creek — 40.69°S, 172.49°EWild Cow — 34.95°N, 106.30°WHadabulaktag — 41.02°N, 87.93°EHadabulaktag — 41.34°N, 87.52°EHadabulaktag — 40.99°N, 88.03°EGraham — 33.24°N, 98.12°WTin Mountain — 36.75°N, 117.48°WBeul — 51.39°N, 7.87°ERoeburndale — 54.10°N, 2.65°WRoeburndale — 54.08°N, 2.47°WRoeburndale — 54.03°N, 2.68°WGarra — 33.95°S, 148.82°EAbu Durba — 28.57°N, 33.30°EAbu Durba — 28.66°N, 33.28°EMattoon — 39.12°N, 88.57°WLa Pasada — 35.67°N, 105.28°WOlentangy Shale — 39.97°N, 83.00°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Conodonta has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 80 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 58 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Conodonta and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Conodonta and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

903 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records at least 469 sites for Conodonta, 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

117 references

Each of the 313 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. 105 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 content2

Picture of Conodonta

Credit
Rexroad, Carl Buckner, 1925-
Licence
No restrictions
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

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 itConodontophorida through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Pander 1856)