Lobophyllia
Searched as Lobophyllia cristata distans. The Paleobiology Database treats Lobophyllia as the accepted name.
Lobophyllia, commonly called lobed brain coral or lobo coral, is a genus of large polyp stony corals. Members of this genus are sometimes found in reef aquariums.

Stan Shebs · 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
- LobophylliidaePBDB
- Diet
- microcarnivore, photosymbioticPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Life habit
- intermediate-level epifaunal, colonial, clonalPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Anthozoa
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Scleractinia
Time the record covers
At most 118 thousand years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 11.7 ka, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Lobophyllia on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
1 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
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.
Lobophyllia and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Lobophyllia and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
417 taxa- Porites19 sites
- Acropora14 sites
- Favia11 sites
- Galaxea fascicularis11 sites
- Montipora11 sites
- Platygyra11 sites
- Galaxea astreata10 sites
- Goniastrea10 sites
- Cyphastrea serailia9 sites
- Diploastrea heliopora9 sites
- Platygyra daedalea9 sites
- Fungia8 sites
- Leptastrea purpurea8 sites
- Dipsastraea pallida7 sites
- Goniastrea retiformis7 sites
- Leptoria phrygia7 sites
- Seriatopora hystrix7 sites
- Acanthastrea echinata6 sites
- Cyathoseris lophiophora6 sites
- Cyphastrea6 sites
- Cyphastrea microphthalma6 sites
- Favites6 sites
- Favites abdita6 sites
- Favites pentagona6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 29 sites for Lobophyllia, 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
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence 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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Lobophyllia
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Stan Shebs
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
- Commercial use
- the licence does not allow it
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, “Lobophyllia”
- 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 itLobophylliidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Blainville 1830