Piloceras

via iDigBio · CC0 · 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
- PiloceratidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda
Time the record covers
At least 7.7 million years on record.
The record covers at least 477.1 Mya to 469.4 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 486.85 Mya to 458.2 Mya.
13 occurrences of Piloceras 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
13 occurrences- Ordovician100%
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
12 formations
- Cotter Formation · Knox Group2
- Gorman Formation1
- Karmberg Formation1
- San Juan Formation1
- Lianjiashan Formation1
- LiangJiaShan Formation1
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The named rock units Piloceras has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Piloceras and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Piloceras and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
69 taxa- Archaeoscyphia3 sites
- Cameroceras3 sites
- Hormotoma3 sites
- Maclurites3 sites
- Manchuroceras3 sites
- Ophileta3 sites
- Asaphellus2 sites
- <Pliomeridae trilobite>1 site
- Allocotoceras1 site
- Allopiloceras subrectum1 site
- Anaspyroceras1 site
- Angelinoceras1 site
- Annamitella1 site
- Barnescoceras sp.1 site
- Bathyurellus abruptus1 site
- Benthamaspis conica1 site
- Bolbocephalus convexus1 site
- Burenoceras1 site
- Buttsoceras1 site
- Clitendoceras1 site
- Coreanoceras1 site
- Curtoceras1 site
- Cybelopsis1 site
- Cyptendoceras1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Piloceras, 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
8 references- Ozarkian and Canadian cephalopods. Part II, Brevicones6
- Regional stratigraphic table of northern China: LiaoNing and HeNan Provinces1
- Cambrian-Ordovician biostratigraphic investigations, Great Northern Peninsula, western Newfoundland1
- Regional Stratigraphic Table of North China1
- Nautiloideos Ordovicicos de la Precordillera Argentina. Fauna de Huaco, Provincia de San Juan1
- Ordovician stratigraphy of the Florentine Synclinorium, southwest Tasmania1
- Devonian-Mississippian Transition in Central Texas1
- Ordovician fossils of north China1
Each of the 13 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. 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 Piloceras
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Piloceras 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
What may have been alongside itPiloceratidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Salter 1859