Rhizocorallium

Rhizocorallium is an ichnogenus of burrow, the inclination of which is typically within 10° of the bedding planes of the sediment. These burrows can be very large, over a meter long in sediments that show good preservation, e.g. Jurassic rocks of the Yorkshire Coast, but the width is usually only up to 2 cm, restricted by the size of the organisms producing it. It is thought that they represent fodinichnia as the animal scoured the sediment for food.

A picture published with the record for Rhizocorallium. What it shows has not been checked.

Rygel, M.C. · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. 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
IchnofossilsPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 504 million years on record.

The record covers at least 538.8 Mya to 33.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 635 Mya to 23.04 Mya.

Cambrian — about 6 of 54 occurrencesOrdovician — about 0 of 54 occurrencesSilurian — about 0 of 54 occurrencesDevonian — about 2 of 54 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 0 of 54 occurrencesPermian — about 0 of 54 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 5 of 54 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 10 of 54 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 1 of 54 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 3 of 54 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 4 of 54 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 3 of 54 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 12 of 54 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 4 of 54 occurrencesPaleocene — about 1 of 54 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 54 occurrencesOligocene — about 1 of 54 occurrencesMiocene — about 0 of 54 occurrences647–626 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences626–605 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences605–584 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences584–562 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences562–541 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences541–520 Mya — about 4 occurrences520–499 Mya — about 2 occurrences393–371 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences371–350 Mya — about 2 occurrences265–244 Mya — about 12 occurrences244–223 Mya — about 3 occurrences223–202 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences202–181 Mya — about 2 occurrences181–159 Mya — about 5 occurrences159–138 Mya — about 4 occurrences138–117 Mya — about 7 occurrences117–96 Mya — about 4 occurrences96–74 Mya — about 3 occurrences74–53 Mya — about 2 occurrences53–32 Mya — about 1 occurrence32–11 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences538.8 Mya33.9 Mya647 Mya11 Mya

54 occurrences of Rhizocorallium on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. 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

54 occurrences

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

25 formations

Grès à Voltzia — 48.73°N, 7.17°EGrès à Voltzia — 48.82°N, 7.25°EGrès à Voltzia — 48.78°N, 7.25°EGrès à Voltzia — 48.91°N, 7.21°EGrès à Voltzia — 48.58°N, 7.49°EKiowa — 37.32°N, 99.75°WKiowa — 37.28°N, 99.66°WKiowa — 38.28°N, 98.41°WKiowa — 38.76°N, 97.86°WWerfen — 43.66°N, 16.51°EWerfen — 44.20°N, 16.07°EWerfen — 44.11°N, 16.23°EShemshak — 36.44°N, 54.50°ELaeso — 55.00°N, 15.07°EWapiti — 55.05°N, 119.37°WChagrin Shale — 41.67°N, 81.12°WChagrin Shale — 41.69°N, 80.89°WAgrio — 37.75°S, 69.92°WAgrio — 37.86°S, 69.99°WTazought — 31.15°N, 8.97°WOpalinuston — 47.43°N, 8.15°ECurrier — 49.70°N, 126.62°WPestrotsvet — 60.70°N, 124.72°EWellenkalk — 50.30°N, 18.97°EBuen Suceso — 54.78°S, 65.25°WSundance — 44.53°N, 107.83°WOcieseki Sandstone — 50.90°N, 20.90°ELiegende Bankkalk — 48.12°N, 8.87°EBlue Lias — 50.71°N, 2.96°WIlundain Marls — 42.77°N, 1.80°WCampello-Villajoyosa — 38.43°N, 0.35°WWerfen — 44.17°N, 16.33°EStaithes Sandstone — 54.26°N, 1.28°WHanna — 42.02°N, 106.45°WMeissner — 50.94°N, 11.25°E

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The named rock units Rhizocorallium has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. One further formation holds fewer occurrences and is not listed. 9 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Rhizocorallium and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Rhizocorallium and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

408 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 46 sites for Rhizocorallium, 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

31 references

Each of the 54 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. 19 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 content2

Picture of Rhizocorallium

Credit
Rygel, M.C.
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

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 itIchnofossils through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Zenker 1836