Ophileta

via iDigBio · 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
- OphiletidaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Euomphalina
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Euomphalina
- Motility
- stationaryPBDB, for Euomphalina
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At least 38 million years on record.
The record covers at least 483.4 Mya to 445.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 488.9 Mya to 443.1 Mya.
69 occurrences of Ophileta 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
69 occurrences- Cambrian2%
- Ordovician98%
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
33 formations
- Lianjiashan Formation7
- Xia Majiagou Formation5
- Chepultepec Formation5
- Honghuayuan Formation4
- Tanyard Formation · Ellenburger Group3
- Yeli Formation3
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The named rock units Ophileta has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 9 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Ophileta and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Ophileta and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
403 taxa- Cameroceras13 sites
- Ecculiomphalus12 sites
- Maclurites11 sites
- Archaeoscyphia10 sites
- Hormotoma10 sites
- Finkelnburgia9 sites
- Manchuroceras9 sites
- Orthis9 sites
- Strophomena8 sites
- Coreanoceras7 sites
- Hopeioceras7 sites
- Mimella7 sites
- Asaphellus6 sites
- Illaenus6 sites
- Proterocameroceras6 sites
- Doleroides5 sites
- Gasconadia putilla5 sites
- Hystricurus5 sites
- Lingulella5 sites
- Michelinoceras5 sites
- Scolopodus5 sites
- Sinorthis5 sites
- Tritoechia5 sites
- Actinoceras4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 66 sites for Ophileta, 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
40 references- Regional Stratigraphic Table of North China10
- Paleozoic Gastropod, Rostroconch, Helcionelloid and Tergomyan Database (2006 - 2023)5
- No.5 The Ordovician System of China5
- Regional stratigraphic data of central South China4
- Zonation of the Middle and Upper Ordovician strata in northwestern Georgia4
- Stratigraphic studies of the Watts Bight Formation (St. George Group), Port au Port Peninsula, Western Newfoundland2
- Regional stratigraphic table of Eastern China, Zhejiang Province2
- The oldest known tentaculitid: from the Chepultepec Limestone (Canadian) of Virginia2
- New gastropods and trilobites critical in the correlation of Lower Ordovician rocks2
- Geology of the Appalachian Valley in Virginia. Part I – Geological text and illustrations2
- The Calciferous of the Mohawk Valley, with descriptions of new species2
- Nuevos trilobites de la Formacion Suri (Ordovicico temprano) en la region de Chaschuil, Provincia de Catamarca: Implicancias bioestratigraficas1
Each of the 69 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. 28 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 Ophileta
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itOphiletidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Vanuxem 1842)