Glomerula
Glomerula is a genus of polychaete worm in the family Sabellidae. It differs from all other Sabellidae in having a calcareous tube and spinose setae. Only one living species, G. piloseta, is known from Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia. The oldest fossils of Glomerula are known from the Early Jurassic and their tube microstructure has remained unchanged since then.

Olev Vinn · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
- SabellinaePBDB
Time the record covers
At least 205 million years on record.
The record covers at least 264.28 Mya to 59.24 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 266.9 Mya to 56 Mya.
53 occurrences of Glomerula on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. 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
53 occurrences- Permian6%
- Early Jurassic1%
- Middle Jurassic8%
- Late Jurassic23%
- Early Cretaceous36%
- Late Cretaceous25%
- Paleocene2%
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
24 formations
- Agrio Formation7
- Grès verts helvétiques Formation2
- Teplice Formation2
- Neuburger Weiß Formation2
- Atherfield Clay Formation2
- Vincentown Formation1
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Glomerula has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 19 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Glomerula and its relatives
Early CretaceousWhere Glomerula and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
1,410 taxa- Serpula13 sites
- Lithophaga10 sites
- Spondylus8 sites
- Modiolus7 sites
- Plagiostoma7 sites
- Plicatula7 sites
- Cucullaea6 sites
- Isocrinus6 sites
- Protocardia6 sites
- Arca5 sites
- Berenicea5 sites
- Buratina5 sites
- Inoceramus5 sites
- Montlivaltia5 sites
- Propomatoceros5 sites
- Astarte4 sites
- Atreta4 sites
- Bryozoa4 sites
- Ceratostreon4 sites
- Dimorphastrea4 sites
- Discotectus4 sites
- Fossarus4 sites
- Goniocora socialis4 sites
- Gryphaeostrea canaliculata4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 41 sites for Glomerula, 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
37 references- Serpulids and other calcareous tube-dwelling encrusting polychaetes from the Early Cretaceous Agrio Formation (Neuquen Basin, Argentina)4
- First record of sabellid and serpulid polychaetes from the Permian of Sicily3
- Late Cretaceous nautilid beaks from near-shore/shallow water deposits of the Bohemian Cretaceous Basin (Czech Republic)3
- Geologie de Madagascar I. Les Terrains Sedimentaires3
- Silicified sea life – Macrofauna and palaeoecology of the Neuburg Kieselerde Member (Cenomanian to Lower Turonian Wellheim Formation, Bavaria, southern Germany)2
- Late Turonian polychaete communities recorded in the hemipelagic sediments of the Bohemian Cretaceous Basin (Teplice Formation, Ohře and Dresden districts)2
- Winzig, aber sensationell! Meine kleinste Fosilfundstelle.2
- Carta Inca de Oro, Región de Atacama. Servicio Nacional de Geología y Minería, Carta Geológica de Chile, Serie Geología Básica, No. 102, 79 p, 1 mapa escala 1:100.0002
- Les grès verts helvétiques (Aptien moyen-Albien supérieur) de Haute-Savoie, Valais et Vaud (Alpes occidentales franco-suisses)2
- Faziesverteilung und Fossilvergesellschaftungen im karbonatischen Flachwassser-Milieu der alpinen Oberkreide (Gosau-Formation) [Facies and fossils from the Upper Cretaceous carbonate shallow water deposits of the Eastern Alps (Gosau Formation)]2
- The stratigraphy of the Atherfield Clay Formation (Lower Aptian, Lower Cretaceous) at the type and other localities in southern England2
- Die Gundershoffener Klamm1
Each of the 53 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. 25 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 Glomerula
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Olev Vinn
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Glomerula 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, “Glomerula”
- 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 itSabellinae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Brünnich Nielsen 1931