Marocella

Marocella is a conical shelly fossil of uncertain affinity known from Cambrian strata of Europe, Morocco, Australia and Antarctica.

Marocella

Uncredited · 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
HelcionellidaePBDB
Diet
detritivorePBDB, for Helcionellidae
Life habit
low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Helcionellidae
Motility
slow-movingPBDB, for Helcionellidae
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Helcionelloida
Environment
marinePBDB, for Helcionelloida

Time the record covers

At least 9.5 million years on record.

The record covers at least 516 Mya to 506.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 538.8 Mya to 497 Mya.

Cambrian — about 30 of 30 occurrencesCambrian540–538 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences538–537 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences537–535 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences535–534 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences534–532 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences532–531 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences531–529 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences529–528 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences528–527 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences527–525 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences525–524 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences524–522 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences522–521 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences521–519 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences519–518 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences518–516 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences516–515 Mya — about 4 occurrences515–514 Mya — about 6 occurrences514–512 Mya — about 6 occurrences512–511 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences511–509 Mya — about 1 occurrence509–508 Mya — about 2 occurrences508–506 Mya — about 4 occurrences506–505 Mya — about 4 occurrences505–503 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences503–502 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences502–501 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences501–499 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences499–498 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences498–496 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences516 Mya506.5 Mya539.6 Mya496.2 Mya

30 occurrences of Marocella on record, most of them in the Cambrian. 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

30 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

10 formations

Jbel Wawrmast — 30.67°N, 8.17°EJbel Wawrmast — 30.67°N, 8.17°WJbel Wawrmast — 32.00°N, 6.00°WJbel Wawrmast — 31.21°N, 7.88°WJbel Wawrmast — 30.58°N, 7.20°WJbel Wawrmast — 31.08°N, 8.13°WJbel Wawrmast — 31.52°N, 5.02°WJbel Wawrmast — 31.37°N, 5.02°WMernmerna — 31.41°S, 138.43°EMernmerna — 31.41°S, 138.56°EMernmerna — 31.19°S, 138.87°ERingstrand — 60.90°N, 10.73°ELáncara — 42.58°N, 5.42°WXinji — 34.90°N, 106.85°EShackleton Limestone — 82.21°S, 160.33°WOraparinna Shale — 31.09°S, 138.85°EParara Limestone — 34.92°S, 137.80°EDelitzsch — 51.62°N, 13.35°ECymbric Vale — 31.22°S, 142.33°E

Loading coastlines…

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

Marocella and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Marocella and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

114 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 26 sites for Marocella, 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

11 references

Each of the 30 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 Marocella

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Marocella 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 itHelcionellidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Geyer 1986