Discohelix
Discohelix is a genus of extinct sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Discohelicidae.

Wilson44691 · CC0 · 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
- DiscohelicidaePBDB
- Diet
- grazerPBDB, for Vetigastropoda
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Vetigastropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Vetigastropoda
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At least 238 million years on record.
The record covers at least 241.464 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 247 Mya to 774 ka.
184 occurrences of Discohelix on record, most of them in the Early Jurassic. 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
184 occurrences- Middle Triassic5%
- Late Triassicunder 1%
- Early Jurassic57%
- Middle Jurassic22%
- Late Jurassic5%
- Early Cretaceous4%
- Late Cretaceous2%
- Paleocene3%
- Eocene1%
- Pleistoceneunder 1%
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
28 formations
- Hierlatz Formation15
- Isztimér Limestone Formation13
- Isztimér Formation13
- Qingyan Formation9
- Hanifa Formation · Shaqra Group8
- Hierlatz Limestone Formation8
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The named rock units Discohelix has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 75 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Discohelix and its relatives
Early JurassicWhere Discohelix and its relatives were recorded in the Early Jurassic.
Found in the same rock
1,496 taxa- Linguithyris aspasia38 sites
- Apringia paolii25 sites
- Securithyris adnethensis25 sites
- Apringia diptycha21 sites
- Calliphylloceras bicicolae21 sites
- Liospiriferina sicula21 sites
- Viallithyris gozzanensis20 sites
- Gastropoda18 sites
- Amberleya (Eucyclus) alpina16 sites
- Anticonulus lateumbilicatus16 sites
- Bakonyithyris ovimontana16 sites
- Juraphyllites16 sites
- Bakonyithyris apenninica15 sites
- Bakonyithyris pedemontana14 sites
- Dohmella multistriatus14 sites
- Eplenyithyris cerasulum14 sites
- Lytoceras14 sites
- Phylloceras hebertinum13 sites
- Phylloceratoidea13 sites
- Liospiriferina gryphoidea12 sites
- Nannirhynchia gemmellaroi11 sites
- Neritopsis (Neritopsis) fabianii11 sites
- Pisirhynchia retroplicata11 sites
- Sisenna turrita11 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 139 sites for Discohelix, 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
40 references- Paleoökológia, paleo(bio)geográfia, evolúció és biokronológia bakonyi jura gastropodák tükrében74
- Le Jurassique D`Arabie Centrale23
- Discohelix (Archaeogastropoda, Euomphalacea) as an index fossil in the Tethyan Jurassic13
- Middle Jurassic Gastropods from the Central High Atlas, Morocco7
- Lower and Middle Jurassic Gastropods from the Bakony Mts. (Hungary). Part 1. Eumophalidae (Archaeogastropoda)7
- Fossilvergesellschaftungen, Paläoökologie und paläosynökologische Entwicklung im Oberen Anisium (Mittlere Trias) von Qingyan, insbesondere Bangtoupo, Provinz Guizhou, Südwestchina6
- Geologie de Madagascar I. Les Terrains Sedimentaires5
- Palökologie benthischer Faunen aus dem Unter-Toarc SW-Europas3
- Gastropods from the Lower Cretaceous of Vorarlberg, Austria. A systematic review3
- Middle Triassic Gastropoda from Qingyan, Guizhou Province, China: 3 - Euomphalacea and Loxonematacea3
- Fauna of the Martinez Eocene of California3
- Sui fossili degli strati a Terebratula aspasia della contrada Rocche Rosse presso Galati (prov. di Messina). Cefalopodi (fine) - Gasteropodi3
Each of the 184 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. 28 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 content1
Picture of Discohelix
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Wilson44691
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Discohelix was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was 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, “Discohelix”
- 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 itDiscohelicidae through timeFormations of the Early JurassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Dunker 1847)