Cranaena
Searched as Cranaena subelliptica hardingensis. The Paleobiology Database treats Cranaena as the accepted name.

via iDigBio · CC0 · 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
- CranaeninaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Terebratulida
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Terebratulida
- Motility
- stationaryPBDB, for Terebratulida
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Rhynchonellata
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Lophophorata
Time the record covers
At most 36 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 358.86 Mya and 323.4 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Cranaena on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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
1 occurrences- Carboniferous100%
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
1 formation
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The named rock units Cranaena has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Cranaena and its relatives
CarboniferousWhere Cranaena and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.
Found in the same rock
1,343 taxa- Athyris43 sites
- Schizophoria38 sites
- Strophomena (Strophodonta)34 sites
- Pseudoatrypa devoniana27 sites
- Schuchertella26 sites
- Spirifer23 sites
- Camarotoechia22 sites
- Crinoidea22 sites
- Cyrtina22 sites
- Pseudoatrypa22 sites
- Spinatrypa22 sites
- Cyrtospirifer21 sites
- Douvillina20 sites
- Spinocyrtia19 sites
- Nervostrophia17 sites
- Tropidoleptus carinatus17 sites
- Tylothyris17 sites
- Leiorhynchus16 sites
- Paracyclas16 sites
- Rhipidomella16 sites
- Chonetes14 sites
- Mucrospirifer mucronatus14 sites
- Productella14 sites
- Cyrtina hamiltonensis13 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 176 sites for Cranaena, 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
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1

Picture of Cranaena
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Cranaena 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itCranaeninae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hall and Clarke 1893