Sphenothallus

Sphenothallus is a problematic extinct genus lately attributed to the conulariids. It was widespread in shallow marine environments during the Paleozoic.

Sphenothallus

Wilson44691 · 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.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
CtenoconulariinaePBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB
Vision
blindPBDB, for Conulariidae

Time the record covers

At least 212 million years on record.

The record covers at least 516 Mya to 303.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 521 Mya to 298.9 Mya.

Cambrian — about 9 of 32 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 14 of 32 occurrencesOrdovicianSilurian — about 1 of 32 occurrencesSilurianDevonian — about 4 of 32 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 4 of 32 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 0 of 32 occurrences525–518 Mya — about 2 occurrences518–510 Mya — about 5 occurrences510–502 Mya — about 1 occurrence502–495 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences487–479 Mya — about 3 occurrences479–472 Mya — about 3 occurrences472–464 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences464–456 Mya — about 2 occurrences456–448 Mya — about 4 occurrences448–441 Mya — about 2 occurrences441–433 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences418–410 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences410–402 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences402–395 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences379–371 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences371–364 Mya — about 2 occurrences364–356 Mya — about 1 occurrence348–341 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences341–333 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences325–318 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences318–310 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences310–302 Mya — about 1 occurrence302–294 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences516 Mya303.7 Mya525 Mya294 Mya

32 occurrences of Sphenothallus 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

32 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

Tumugol — 37.17°N, 129.02°EChagrin Shale — 41.69°N, 80.89°WChagrin Shale — 41.72°N, 81.25°WKope — 39.01°N, 84.45°WKope — 39.04°N, 84.53°WWulongqing — 25.68°N, 102.17°ENiutitang — 27.67°N, 106.68°EKraluv Dvur — 50.00°N, 14.00°EMaquoketa — 43.28°N, 91.37°WMosalem — 42.27°N, 90.42°WMyslejovice — 49.27°N, 17.00°EGuojiaba — 32.45°N, 107.33°EHarkless — 37.36°N, 117.36°WBalclatchie — 55.21°N, 4.82°WJince — 49.78°N, 13.97°EBurgess Shale — 51.39°N, 116.43°WLlanfawr Mudstone — 52.24°N, 3.36°WPoleta — 37.38°N, 117.27°WCaddo Creek — 33.24°N, 98.08°WGraham — 33.17°N, 98.16°WMadaoyu — 28.78°N, 109.84°EMospyne — 48.24°N, 39.34°EGilwern Volcanic — 52.24°N, 3.38°WHunsrück Slate — 49.83°N, 7.37°EWoodruff — 40.69°N, 116.13°WZhaolaoyu — 35.00°N, 109.20°E

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The named rock units Sphenothallus 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.

Sphenothallus and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Sphenothallus and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

662 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 30 sites for Sphenothallus, 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

24 references

Each of the 32 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. 12 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 Sphenothallus

Credit
Wilson44691
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Sphenothallus was found in Sketchfab.

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 itCtenoconulariinae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hall 1847