Dinobolus

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
- TrimerellidaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Trimerellida
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Trimerellida
- Motility
- stationaryPBDB, for Trimerellida
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Craniata
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Trimerellida
Time the record covers
At least 43 million years on record.
The record covers at least 468 Mya to 425 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 477.1 Mya to 422.7 Mya.
30 occurrences of Dinobolus 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
30 occurrences- Ordovician33%
- Silurian67%
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
12 formations
- Racine Formation6
- Verulam Formation · Simcoe Group5
- Ellis Bay Formation · Jolliet Group4
- Hopkinton Formation3
- Gower Formation2
- Wabash Formation1
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The named rock units Dinobolus 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.
Dinobolus and its relatives
SilurianWhere Dinobolus and its relatives were recorded in the Silurian.
Found in the same rock
649 taxa- Gastropoda12 sites
- Rugosa11 sites
- Bryozoa10 sites
- Nautiloidea10 sites
- Halysites9 sites
- Meristina9 sites
- Platyceras9 sites
- Arctinurus8 sites
- Atrypa8 sites
- Bumastus8 sites
- Dimerocrinites8 sites
- Favosites8 sites
- Harpidium (Isovella)8 sites
- Isorthis8 sites
- Kionoceras8 sites
- Platystrophia8 sites
- Caryocrinites7 sites
- Crotalocrinites7 sites
- Eucalyptocrinites7 sites
- Howellella7 sites
- Nucleospira7 sites
- Plectatrypa7 sites
- Whitfieldella7 sites
- <Favositid>6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 29 sites for Dinobolus, 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
13 references- Palaeozoic geology of the Lake Simcoe Area, Ontario5
- Caradocian-Gedinnian echinoderm associations of Central and Eastern North America4
- Silurian brachiopod and related benthic communities from carbonate platform and mound environments of Iowa and surrounding areas4
- The Silurian (Wenlockian) reef fauna of Southeastern Wisconsin4
- Anticosti Island, Québec4
- Evolution of Silurian Pentamerid Communities in Wisconsin2
- The Middle Llandovery brachiopod Fauna of the Newlands Formation, Girvan, Scotland1
- Silurian and Lochkovian communities in the Prague basin (Barrandian area, Czech Republic)1
- Community paleoecology as a geologic tool: the Chinese Ashgillian-Eifelian (latest Ordovician through early Middle Devonian) as an example1
- Stratigraphy, structure, and zonation of large Silurian reef at Delphi, Indiana1
- The lower and upper boundary of the Ordovician System of some selected regions (Celtiberia, eastern Sierra Morena) in Spain; Part I, The Lower Ordovician sequence of Celtiberia1
- Paleoecology and Petrology of Pipe Creek Jr. Reef (Niagaran-Cayugan), Grant County, Indiana1
Each of the 30 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. 1 further reference is 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 Dinobolus
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Dinobolus 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 itTrimerellidae through timeFormations of the SilurianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hall 1871