Tainoceras
Searched as Tainoceras occidentalis. The Paleobiology Database treats Tainoceras as the accepted name.
Tainoceras is an extinct coiled cephalopod that live during the later part of the Paleozoic and Triassic, that belongs to the nautiloid family Tainoceratidae.

James St. John · CC BY 2.0 · 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
- TainoceratidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Nautilida
- Life habit
- nektobenthicPBDB, for Nautilida
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Nautilida
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda
Time the record covers
At most 2.3 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 306 Mya and 303.7 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
4 occurrences of Tainoceras on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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
4 occurrences- Carboniferous100%
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
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Tainoceras has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Tainoceras and its relatives
CarboniferousWhere Tainoceras and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.
Found in the same rock
901 taxa- Pseudorthoceras knoxense25 sites
- Trepospira illinoisensis23 sites
- Glabrocingulum22 sites
- Kutorginella lasallensis22 sites
- Worthenia tabulata22 sites
- Crinoidea21 sites
- Condrathyris perplexa20 sites
- Meekospira20 sites
- Straparollus20 sites
- Composita subtilita19 sites
- Euphemites19 sites
- Ianthinopsis19 sites
- Linoproductus cora19 sites
- Nautiloidea indet.19 sites
- Parajuresania nebrascensis19 sites
- Astartella concentrica18 sites
- Glaphyrites modestus18 sites
- Lophophyllidium18 sites
- Antiquatonia17 sites
- Crurithyris planoconvexa17 sites
- Kozlowskia17 sites
- Phymatopleura brazoensis17 sites
- Derbyia16 sites
- Domatoceras16 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 108 sites for Tainoceras, 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
1 referenceEach of the 4 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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Tainoceras
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- James St. John
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Tainoceras 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.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Tainoceras”
- 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 itTainoceratidae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hyatt 1883