Paterina
Paterina is a genus of brachiopods known from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale. 18 specimens of Paterina are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise 0.03% of the community.

Yale Peabody Museum · CC0 · via GBIF. 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
- PaterinidaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Paterinida
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Paterinida
- Motility
- stationaryPBDB, for Paterinida
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Paterinata
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Lophophorata
Time the record covers
At least 63 million years on record.
The record covers at least 521 Mya to 457.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 538.8 Mya to 454 Mya.
88 occurrences of Paterina 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
88 occurrences- Cambrian99%
- Ordovician1%
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
30 formations
- Forteau Formation29
- Burgess Shale Formation · Chancellor Group10
- Riley Formation7
- Kinzers Formation6
- Lower Comley Formation4
- Shady Formation2
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The named rock units Paterina has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed.
Paterina and its relatives
CambrianWhere Paterina and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.
Found in the same rock
472 taxa- Micromitra22 sites
- Hyolithes17 sites
- Kootenia12 sites
- Acrothyra11 sites
- Lingulella11 sites
- Selkirkia10 sites
- Trilobita10 sites
- Diraphora9 sites
- Hazelia9 sites
- Nisusia9 sites
- Burgessia8 sites
- Ehmaniella burgessensis8 sites
- Haplophrentis carinatus8 sites
- Laggania8 sites
- Liangshanella8 sites
- Marrella splendens8 sites
- Morania8 sites
- Ottoia prolifica8 sites
- Pentagnostus praecurrens8 sites
- Scenella amii8 sites
- Selkirkia columbia8 sites
- Sidneyia8 sites
- Waptia fieldensis8 sites
- Wiwaxia corrugata8 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 81 sites for Paterina, 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
37 references- Depth related brachiopod faunas from the lower Cambrian Forteau Formation of southern Labrador and western Newfoundland, Canada28
- Paleoecology of the Greater Phyllopod Bed community, Burgess Shale8
- The Faunas of the Riley Formation in Central Texas7
- The Lower Cambrian microfauna of Comley and Rushton, Shropshire, England4
- Lower Cambrian Olenellus zone of the Appalachians4
- Upper Precambrian through Lower Cambrian of Cape Breton Island: faunas, paleoenvironments, and stratigraphic revision2
- Middle Cambrian stratigraphy and faunas of the Canadian Rocky Mountains2
- Cambrian history of the Grand Canyon region2
- Geology of the Hanover-York District Pennsylvania2
- Cambrian Brachiopoda2
- Palaeontology and depositional environments of ancient brine seeps in the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale at The Monarch, British Columbia, Canada1
- Cambrian - early Ordovician brachiopods from Malyi Karatau, the western Balkhash region, and Tien Shan, Central Asia1
Each of the 88 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. 25 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 Paterina
- Source
- GBIF
- Credit
- Yale Peabody Museum
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Paterina 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, “Paterina”
- 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 itPaterinidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Beecher 1891)