Spirorbis

Searched as Spirorbis caperatus. The Paleobiology Database treats Spirorbis as the accepted name.

Spirorbis is a genus of very small polychaete worms, usually with a white coiled shell. Members of the genus live in the lower littoral and sublittoral zones of rocky shores. Spirorbis worms usually live attached to seaweeds, but some species live directly on rocks, shells or other hard substrates. Spirorbis was once thought to have a fossil record extending back into the Early Paleozoic, but now all pre-Bathonian spirorbins are known to be microconchids. The earliest members of genus appeared in the Miocene, but Oligocene finds may also be possible. The genus contains the following species:Spirorbis corallinae De Silva and Knight-jones, 1962 Spirorbis cuneatus Gee, 1964 Spirorbis granulatus Spirorbis incongruus Spirorbis inornatus L'hardy and Quievreux, 1962 Spirorbis knightjonesi Desilva, 1965 Spirorbis lineatus Spirorbis marioni (Caullery and Mesnil, 1897) Spirorbis medius Spirorbis moerchi Spirorbis nakamurai Spirorbis quadrangularis Spirorbis quasimilitaris Bailey, 1970 Spirorbis rupestris Gee and Knight-jones, 1962 Spirorbis semidentatus Spirorbis similis Spirorbis spirorbis (Linnaeus, 1758) Spirorbis steueri Sterzinger, 1909 Spirorbis tridentata Levinsen, 1883 Spirorbis variabilis Spirorbis violaceus

Spirorbis

Paul Adams · 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
SerpulidaePBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB
Motility
stationary, attached, epibiontPBDB

Time the record covers

At most 17 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 346.7 Mya and 330.3 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Carboniferous — about 2 of 2 occurrencesCarboniferous347–347 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences347–346 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences346–345 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences345–345 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences345–344 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences344–344 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences344–343 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences343–343 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences343–342 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences342–341 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences341–341 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences341–340 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences340–340 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences340–339 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences339–339 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences339–338 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences338–337 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences337–337 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences337–336 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences336–336 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences336–335 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences335–334 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences334–334 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences334–333 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences333–333 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences333–332 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences332–332 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences332–331 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences331–330 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences330–330 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences347.2 Mya329.8 Mya

2 occurrences of Spirorbis on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

2 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

2 formations

Miller Creek and Wentworth Station — 45.02°N, 64.06°WMacumber and White Quarry — 45.03°N, 64.09°W

Loading coastlines…

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

Spirorbis and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Spirorbis and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

3,062 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 297 sites for Spirorbis, and this reads 240 of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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

1 reference

Each of the 2 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Spirorbis

Credit
Paul Adams
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Spirorbis 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 itSerpulidae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Daudin 1800