Novocrania
Novocrania is a genus of brachiopods found off shore.

British Museum · Public Domain · 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
- CraniidaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Craniida
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Craniida
- Motility
- stationaryPBDB, for Craniida
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Craniata
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Craniata
Time the record covers
At least 450 million years on record.
The record covers at least 451 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 457.3 Mya to 11.7 ka.
47 occurrences of Novocrania on record, most of them in the Ordovician. 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
47 occurrences- Ordovician28%
- Silurian2%
- Late Triassic4%
- Eocene11%
- Oligocene9%
- Miocene26%
- Pliocene11%
- Pleistocene11%
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
21 formations
- Pinczow Formation4
- Denley Limestone Formation · Lower Trenton Group3
- Dunleith Formation · Galena Group3
- Red Bluff Tuff Formation · Kekerione Group3
- Waititi Formation · Otaua Group3
- Waynesville Formation2
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The named rock units Novocrania has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 12 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Novocrania and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Novocrania and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
972 taxa- Orbicula filosa13 sites
- Megathiris detruncata12 sites
- Megerlia truncata12 sites
- Isotelus gigas10 sites
- Paucicrura rogata9 sites
- Rafinesquina trentonensis8 sites
- Anazyga recurvirostra7 sites
- Hesperorthis tricenaria7 sites
- Pachyglossella7 sites
- Parastrophina7 sites
- Petrocrania7 sites
- Pseudolingula iowensis7 sites
- Rhynchotrema7 sites
- Acanthocrania setigera6 sites
- Argyrotheca cuneata6 sites
- Bumastoides6 sites
- Dinorthis meedsi6 sites
- Diorthelasma weissi6 sites
- Flexicalymene (Flexicalymene) senaria6 sites
- Glyptorthis bellarugosa6 sites
- Joania cordata6 sites
- Platystrophia amoena6 sites
- Platystrophia trentonensis6 sites
- Sceptaspis lincolnensis6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 45 sites for Novocrania, 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
26 references- Novocrania turbinata (Brachiopoda) from the Early Pliocene of the Azores (Portugal)4
- Middle Miocene (Badenian) brachiopods from the southern slopes of the Holy Cross Mountains, Central Poland4
- Biostratigraphy of the Middle and Late Ordovician cephalopods of the Upper Mississippi Valley area4
- Middle Miocene (Badenian) brachiopods from Yasen, northwestern Bulgaria: taxonomic composition and biogeographical significance3
- Micromorphic brachiopods from the Early Miocene (Otaian) of Northland, New Zealand3
- Cretaceous-Cenozoic geology and biostratigraphy of the Chatham Islands, New Zealand3
- Brachiopods and trilobites of the Sardeson Beds in the Twin Cities3
- Upper Oligocene (Chattian) brachiopod fauna from the Aquitaine Basin, southwestern France and its paleoenviornmental implications2
- I brachiopodi delle Calcareniti di Castro Marina (Lecce)2
- Fossil communities of the lower Trenton Group (Middle Ordovician) of central and northwestern New York State2
- Beiträge zur Geognosie und Petrefacten-Kunde des südöstlichen Tirols vorzüglich der Schichten von St. Cassian2
- Brachiopods from the Lower Red Formation (Lower Oligocene) of the Isfahan Province, central Iran1
Each of the 47 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. 14 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 Novocrania
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- British Museum
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Novocrania 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.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Novocrania”
- 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 itCraniidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lee and Brunton 1986