Coptothyris
Coptothyris is a monotypic genus of brachiopods belonging to the family Terebrataliidae. The only species is Coptothyris grayi.

mister_bumble · CC BY 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
- TerebrataliinaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Terebrataliidae
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Terebrataliidae
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Terebrataliidae
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Rhynchonellata
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Lophophorata
Time the record covers
At least 142 million years on record.
The record covers at least 143.1 Mya to 774 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 201.4 Mya to 129 ka.
40 occurrences of Coptothyris on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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
40 occurrences- Early Jurassic1%
- Middle Jurassicunder 1%
- Late Jurassicunder 1%
- Early Cretaceous15%
- Late Cretaceous18%
- Miocene40%
- Pliocene8%
- Pleistocene18%
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
21 formations
- Moniwa Formation7
- Windrow Formation4
- Brazeau Formation2
- Tajima Formation2
- Taya Formation2
- Otsutsumi Formation2
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The named rock units Coptothyris has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Coptothyris and its relatives
MioceneWhere Coptothyris and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
141 taxa- Terebratalia gouldii6 sites
- Hemithyris psittacea5 sites
- Terebratulina crossei5 sites
- Terebratalia tenuis4 sites
- Amussiopecten praesignis3 sites
- Hemithiris woodwardi3 sites
- Laqueus rubellus3 sites
- Minerisporites3 sites
- Mizuhopecten tokyoensis hokurikuensis3 sites
- Terebratalia coreanica3 sites
- Terebratulina japonica3 sites
- Terebratulina kiiensis3 sites
- Anadara2 sites
- Balanus2 sites
- Balmeisporites2 sites
- Callista (Callista) chinensis2 sites
- Chlamys2 sites
- Corbula (Anisocorbula)2 sites
- Crassatella2 sites
- Dentalium (Graptacme)2 sites
- Diestothyris frontalis2 sites
- Laqueus blanfordi2 sites
- Laqueus hanawensis2 sites
- Laqueus japonicus2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 31 sites for Coptothyris, 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- The Cenozoic Brachiopoda of Japan18
- Marine fossils from the Moniwa Formation distributed along the Natori River, Sendai, northeast Honshu, Japan, part 1. Brachiopoda from the Moniwa Formation4
- Some British Wealden megaspores and their facies distribution4
- Megaspore assemblages in the Cretaceous of Minnesota4
- Pliocene marine fauna from Tane-ga-shima, South Kyushu, Japan2
- Megaspores and other palynomorphs of the Brazeau Formation (Upper Cretaceous), Nordegg Area, Alberta2
- Microflora of the Lower Cretaceous Mannville Group2
- Early Pleistocene fossil Mollusca from the sea of Japan off Yamaguchi Prefecture1
- Neogene Molluscan Fauna in Hokkaido : Part III. Description of the Ainonai Fauna Associated with Desmostylus cf. minor Nagao, from Kitami District, East Hokkaido1
- Megaspores and other fossils in the Dakota Formation (Cenomanian) of Iowa, (U.S.A.)1
- Leaf-cuticle and other plant microfossils from the Mesozoic rocks of Andoya, Norway1
Each of the 40 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 Coptothyris
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- mister_bumble
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Coptothyris 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Coptothyris”
- 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 itTerebrataliinae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Jackson 1918