Orthidae
The Orthidae are a family of brachiopods that belong in the order Orthida. They range from the Early Ordovician to the Early Devonian. This family includes the genus Orthis, which is the namesake of this family, as well as the order Orthida.

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
- OrthoideaPBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Orthida
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Orthida
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Orthida
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Rhynchonellata
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Lophophorata
Time the record covers
At least 315 million years on record.
The record covers at least 483.4 Mya to 168.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 488.9 Mya to 165.3 Mya.
1,150 occurrences of Orthidae 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
1,150 occurrences- Cambrianunder 1%
- Ordovician88%
- Silurian7%
- Devonian4%
- Carboniferousunder 1%
- Permianunder 1%
- Middle Jurassicunder 1%
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
290 formations
- Antelope Valley Formation · Pogonip Group61
- Dawan Formation56
- Volkhov Formation37
- Uzunbulak Formation27
- Obukhovo Formation23
- Meitan Formation22
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The named rock units Orthidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 266 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 136 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Orthidae and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Orthidae and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
2,142 taxa- Orthis97 sites
- Sinorthis62 sites
- Didymograptus45 sites
- Orthambonites34 sites
- Mimella27 sites
- Illaenus26 sites
- Taihungshania26 sites
- Neseuretus25 sites
- Atrypa23 sites
- Yangtzeella23 sites
- Phyllograptus21 sites
- Crinoidea20 sites
- Leptaena20 sites
- Dolerorthis19 sites
- Sowerbyella19 sites
- Ampyx17 sites
- Dictyonema17 sites
- Leangella scissa17 sites
- Leptella17 sites
- Megalaspides17 sites
- Strophomena17 sites
- Tetragraptus17 sites
- Tritoechia17 sites
- Asaphellus16 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 952 sites for Orthidae, 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
239 references- Brakhiopody nadsemejstv Orthacea, Dalmanellacea i Syntrophiacea iz nizhnego ordovika Pribaltiki [Lower Ordovician brachiopods of the superfamilies Orthacea, Dalmanellacea and Syntrophiacea of the Eastern Baltic]50
- Brachiopod macrofaunal distribution through the upper Volkhov - lower Kunda (Low Ordovician) rocks, Lynna River, St. Petersburg region43
- Resolving early Mid-Ordovician (Kundan) bioevents in the East Baltic based on brachiopods42
- Stratigraphic Summary of the Southwestern Region of China35
- Ordovician Brachiopods, Trilobites, and Stratigraphy in Eastern and Central Nevada35
- Einige Vertreter der Superfamilie Orthacea des Oberordoviziums Estlands33
- The Barr and lower Ardmillan series (Caradoc) of the Girvan District, south-west Ayrshire, with descriptions of the Brachiopoda26
- The Late Ordovician brachiopods of southern Pembrokeshire and adjacent south-western Wales25
- Mid Ordovician (Darriwilian) brachiopods of South Kazakhstan25
- Brachiopod diversification during the Early–Mid Ordovician: an example from the Dawan Formation, Yichang area, central China23
- Orthambonites and related Ordovician brachiopod genera22
- Ordovician Brachiopoda from the Shelve District, Shropshire22
Each of the 1,150 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. 227 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 Orthidae
- 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 of Orthidae 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, “Orthidae”
- 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 itOrthoidea through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Woodward 1852