Isorophus

Isorophus is an extinct genus of Echinoderm belonging to the class Edrioasteroidea. It is commonly found in deposits dating to the Ordovician period. There are several species, with one being the official fossil of the city of Cincinnati in the US state of Ohio.

Isorophus

Yale Peabody Museum · CC0 · via GBIF. 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
IsorophidaePBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB
Motility
stationary, attached, epibiontPBDB
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Edrioasteroidea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Echinodermata

Time the record covers

At least 10 million years on record.

The record covers at least 459.7 Mya to 449.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 461 Mya to 443.1 Mya.

Ordovician — about 14 of 14 occurrencesOrdovicianSilurian — about 0 of 14 occurrences462–461 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences461–460 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences460–460 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences458–457 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences457–456 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences456–456 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences456–455 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences455–455 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences455–454 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences454–453 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences453–453 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences453–452 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences452–451 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences451–451 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences451–450 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences450–450 Mya — about 1 occurrence450–449 Mya — about 1 occurrence449–448 Mya — about 1 occurrence448–448 Mya — about 1 occurrence448–447 Mya — about 1 occurrence447–446 Mya — about 1 occurrence446–446 Mya — about 1 occurrence446–445 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences445–444 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences444–444 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences444–443 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences443–443 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences459.7 Mya449.6 Mya461.5 Mya442.6 Mya

14 occurrences of Isorophus on record, most of them in the Ordovician. 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

14 occurrences

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

13 formations

Arnheim — 39.00°N, 84.00°WBull Fork — 39.39°N, 83.92°WOrchard Creek Shale — 37.19°N, 89.45°WFairview — 39.00°N, 84.00°WBellevue — 39.00°N, 84.00°WCorryville — 39.00°N, 84.00°WWaynesville — 39.00°N, 84.00°WWhitewater — 39.00°N, 84.00°WElkhorn — 39.00°N, 84.00°WScales — 37.23°N, 89.47°WLexington — 37.98°N, 84.69°WIzegguirene — 30.57°N, 5.99°WDrakes — 38.07°N, 85.53°W

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The named rock units Isorophus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Isorophus and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Isorophus and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

347 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Isorophus, 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

7 references

Each of the 14 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 Isorophus

Source
GBIF
Credit
Yale Peabody Museum
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Isorophus 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

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 itIsorophidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Foerste 1916