Pycnomphalus obesus

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
- PycnomphalusPBDB
- Diet
- detritivorePBDB, for Anomphalidae
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Anomphalidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Anomphalidae
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At least 18 million years on record.
The record covers at least 445.5 Mya to 426.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 449.6 Mya to 422.7 Mya.
9 occurrences of Pycnomphalus obesus on record, most of them in the Silurian. 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
9 occurrences- Ordovician11%
- Silurian89%
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
5 formations
- Guelph Formation4
- Lower Visby Formation1
- Cape Phillips Formation1
- Miaokao Formation1
- Racine Dolomite Formation1
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The named rock units Pycnomphalus obesus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Pycnomphalus obesus and its relatives
SilurianWhere Pycnomphalus obesus and its relatives were recorded in the Silurian.
Found in the same rock
194 taxa- Coelocaulus longispira4 sites
- Loxoplocus gothlandicus4 sites
- Loxoplocus soluta4 sites
- Oriostoma globosum4 sites
- Ptychocaulus bivittata4 sites
- Tremanotus angustata4 sites
- Codonocheilus striatum3 sites
- Coelocaulus turritiformis3 sites
- Cyrtospira ventricosus3 sites
- Cyrtostropha macrospira3 sites
- Euomphalopterus valeria3 sites
- Gastropoda3 sites
- Howellella3 sites
- Kirkospira vitellia3 sites
- Pachystrophia inornatum3 sites
- Amphistrophia2 sites
- Atrypa2 sites
- Conotoma bispiralis2 sites
- Dalejina2 sites
- Isfarispira perlata2 sites
- Leptaena2 sites
- Michelia whiteavesi2 sites
- Nucleospira2 sites
- Oriostoma2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Pycnomphalus obesus, 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
7 references- Revision of the fauna of the Guelph formation of Ontario, with descriptions of a few new species3
- Paleozoic Gastropod, Rostroconch, Helcionelloid and Tergomyan Database (2006 - 2023)1
- New materials of Silurian gastropods from SW. China1
- Silurian (Wenlockian) gastropods from Baillie-Hamilton Island, Canadian Arctic1
- Ordovician cephalopod fauna of Baffin Island1
- The Silurian Gastropoda and Pteropoda of Gotland1
- On some new, imperfectly characterized or previously unrecorded species of fossils from the Guelph Formations of Ontario1
Each of the 9 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 Pycnomphalus obesus
- 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 itPycnomphalus through timeFormations of the SilurianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lindström 1884