Orthodesma

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
- ModiomorphidaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Modiomorphidae
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Modiomorphidae
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Modiomorphidae
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Modiomorphidae
Time the record covers
At least 32 million years on record.
The record covers at least 455 Mya to 422.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 471.3 Mya to 419.62 Mya.
74 occurrences of Orthodesma 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
74 occurrences- Ordovician86%
- Silurian14%
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
39 formations
- Dunleith Formation · Galena Group8
- St. Peter Sandstone Formation6
- Maquoketa Formation4
- Waynesville Formation3
- Whitewater Formation3
- Kope Formation3
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The named rock units Orthodesma has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 15 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Orthodesma and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Orthodesma and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
782 taxa- Modiolopsis46 sites
- Ctenodonta41 sites
- Cyrtodonta40 sites
- Nuculites32 sites
- Cyrtodontula28 sites
- Pterinea28 sites
- Hormotoma gracilis25 sites
- Cymatonota24 sites
- Modiolodon24 sites
- Lyrodesma23 sites
- Similodonta22 sites
- Sinuites cancellatus22 sites
- Rhytimya21 sites
- Vanuxemia21 sites
- Cuneamya20 sites
- Ambonychia19 sites
- Lophospira perangulata18 sites
- Plethocardia18 sites
- Trochonema umbilicata18 sites
- Ambonychiopsis17 sites
- Liospira vitruvia17 sites
- Sphenolium17 sites
- Clathrospira subconica16 sites
- Cyclonema textilis16 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 73 sites for Orthodesma, 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
24 references- Stratigraphic ranges of Middle and Late Ordovician Gastropoda and Monoplacophora of Minnesota22
- The fossil fauna of the Ordovician in the Cincinnati Region10
- The Clinton of Western and Central New York6
- Upper Ordovician faunas of Ontario and Quebec6
- Ordovician pelecypods from the Upper Mississippi Valley5
- The base of the Silurian System in Tasmania2
- The occurrence of pelecypods in early Paleozoic epeiric-sea environments, Late Ordovician of the Cincinnati, Ohio area2
- The paleoecology of a Late Ordovician shale unit from southwest Ohio and southeastern Indiana2
- The St. Peter Sandstone of Southeastern Minnesota: Fauna2
- The paleontology and stratigraphy of the upper Martinsburg formation of Massanutten Mountain, Virginia2
- The Richmond Formation of Michigan2
- Deepwater occurrence of a new Glyptocrinus (Crinoidea, Camerata) from the Late Ordovician of southwestern Ohio and northern Kentucky: revision of crinoid paleocommunity composition1
Each of the 74 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. 12 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 Orthodesma
- 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 Orthodesma 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
Everything alive alongside itModiomorphidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hall and Whitfield 1875