Stylosphaera

Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919); engravings by Adolf Giltsch (1852-1911). · Public Domain · via Wikidata/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
- StylosphaeridaePBDB
Time the record covers
At least 226 million years on record.
The record covers at least 247 Mya to 20.45 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 248.6 Mya to 13.82 Mya.
116 occurrences of Stylosphaera on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. 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
116 occurrences- Early Triassic2%
- Middle Triassic11%
- Middle Jurassic5%
- Late Jurassic2%
- Early Cretaceous39%
- Late Cretaceous5%
- Paleocene20%
- Eocene14%
- Oligocene1%
- Mioceneunder 1%
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
7 formations
- Maiolica Formation42
- Mead Hill Formation21
- Lefkara Formation3
- Strubberg Formation2
- Xinyuan Formation1
- Lower Kanguk Formation1
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The named rock units Stylosphaera has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 45 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Stylosphaera and its relatives
Early CretaceousWhere Stylosphaera and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
522 taxa- Triactoma45 sites
- Acastea diaphorogona44 sites
- Eucyrtidium44 sites
- Thanarla pulchra44 sites
- Acaeniotyle umbilicata43 sites
- Angulobracchia portmanni43 sites
- Bernoullius43 sites
- Acanthocircus trizonalis42 sites
- Alievium helenae42 sites
- Paronaella tubulata42 sites
- Sethocapsa trachyostraca42 sites
- Tethysetta boesii42 sites
- Archaeodictyomitra excellens41 sites
- Pantanellium squinaboli41 sites
- Sethocapsa dorysphaeroides41 sites
- Suna echiodes41 sites
- Xitus asymbatos41 sites
- Homoeoparonaella40 sites
- Mirifusus chenodes40 sites
- Parvicingula40 sites
- Archaeospongoprunum patricki39 sites
- Archaeotritrabs gracilis39 sites
- Cyclastrum39 sites
- Deviatus diamphidius39 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 103 sites for Stylosphaera, and this reads all 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
19 references- Early Cretaceous Radiolarian Biostratigraphy of Umbria-Marche Apennines (Italy), Southern Alps (Italy and Switzerland) and Hawasina Nappes (Oman)42
- Stratigraphic, paleontological and geochemical data from Upper Cretaceous and Lower Paleocene strata in southeastern Marlborough, New Zealand24
- РАДИОЛЯРИИ и НИЖНЕМЕЗОЗОЙСКИЕ ТОЛЩИ ВОСТОКА СССР [Radiolarians and Lower Mesozoic Thickness East USSR]14
- Site U15076
- Site U15095
- Faunal change of Early - Middle Jurassic radiolarians5
- Site U15083
- Biostratigraphy of Late Paleocene- Middle Eocene radiolarians and foraminifera from Cyprus3
- Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous Radiolaria from chert blocks in th Lubok Antu melange, Sarawak, Malaysia3
- Die paläogeographische Stellung des Watzmann Blockes in den Berchtesgadener Kalkalpen - Neuergebnisse auf der Basis der Analyse der Trias- und Jura-Entwicklung2
- A new late Early to early Middle Miocene fossil baleen whale aff. Isanacetus laticephalus specimen from Hokkaido, Japan1
- Site U15101
Each of the 116 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. 7 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 Stylosphaera
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919); engravings by Adolf Giltsch (1852-1911).
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Stylosphaera was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itStylosphaeridae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ehrenberg 1847