Leptodesma
Searched as Leptodesma acadica. The Paleobiology Database treats Leptodesma 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
- PterineidaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Pterineidae
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Pterineidae
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Pterineidae
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
- Environment
- marine,brackishPBDB, for Ostreida
Time the record covers
At most 17 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 346.7 Mya and 330.3 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Leptodesma 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
2 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
2 formations
- Miller Creek and Wentworth Station Formation · Windsor Group1
- Macumber and White Quarry Formation · Windsor Group1
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The named rock units Leptodesma has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Leptodesma and its relatives
CarboniferousWhere Leptodesma and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.
Found in the same rock
2,009 taxa- Camarotoechia69 sites
- Crinoidea62 sites
- Chonetes41 sites
- Cypricardella36 sites
- Productella36 sites
- Goniophora34 sites
- Nuculites33 sites
- Ambocoelia32 sites
- Gastropoda31 sites
- Grammysia31 sites
- Mucrospirifer31 sites
- Palaeoneilo31 sites
- Actinopteria30 sites
- Leiorhynchus29 sites
- Schizophoria29 sites
- Cornellites27 sites
- Lingula27 sites
- Rhipidomella27 sites
- Palaeoneilo constricta26 sites
- Cyrtina23 sites
- Sphenotus23 sites
- Tylothyris23 sites
- Atrypa22 sites
- Modiomorpha22 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 570 sites for Leptodesma, and this reads 240 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 2 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1

Picture of Leptodesma
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Leptodesma 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itPterineidae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hall 1883