Sphaerospongia

Sphaerospongia is an extinct genus of organism found in marine beds of Devonian age. Its classification is enigmatic, but it is typically placed among the sponges or the receptaculites. The organism has a surface covered with hexagonal plates, and some early taxonomists placed it among the echinoderms. It is found in close association with the horn coral Tabulophyllum traversensis in the Onate Formation of New Mexico, US, where it provides a substrate for the coral.

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

JFriedrich Heinrich Emanuel Kayser (1845–1927). C.F. Schmidt lith. · Public Domain · 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.

Time the record covers

At most 12 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 393.47 Mya and 382.31 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Devonian — about 9 of 9 occurrencesDevonian394–393 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences393–393 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences393–392 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences392–392 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences392–392 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences392–391 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences391–391 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences391–390 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences390–390 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences390–390 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences390–389 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences389–389 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences389–388 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences388–388 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences388–387 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences387–387 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences387–387 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences387–386 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences386–386 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences386–385 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences385–385 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences385–385 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences385–384 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences384–384 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences384–383 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences383–383 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences383–383 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences383–382 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences394 Mya381.8 Mya

9 occurrences of Sphaerospongia on record, most of them in the Devonian. 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

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

3 formations

Winnipegosis — 52.96°N, 100.90°WWinnipegosis — 52.81°N, 100.74°WWinnipegosis — 52.82°N, 100.84°WWinnipegosis — 52.81°N, 100.86°WWinnipegosis — 51.58°N, 99.54°WHume — 65.28°N, 128.77°WTully — 42.81°N, 75.99°W

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The named rock units Sphaerospongia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Sphaerospongia and its relatives

Devonian

Where Sphaerospongia and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.

Found in the same rock

61 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Sphaerospongia, 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

3 references

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 Sphaerospongia

Credit
JFriedrich Heinrich Emanuel Kayser (1845–1927). C.F. Schmidt lith.
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.