Trachyphyllia geoffroyi
The open brain coral is a brightly colored free-living coral species in the family Merulinidae. It is the only species in the monotypic genus Trachyphyllia and can be found throughout the Indo-Pacific.

bondolo · CC BY 3.0 · 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
- TrachyphylliaPBDB
- Diet
- microcarnivore, photosymbioticPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Life habit
- intermediate-level epifaunal, colonial, clonalPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Anthozoa
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Scleractinia
Time the record covers
At least 11 million years on record.
The record covers at least 11.63 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 15.98 Mya to 11.7 ka.
7 occurrences of Trachyphyllia geoffroyi on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
7 occurrences- Miocene29%
- Pliocene14%
- Pleistocene57%
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
5 formations
- Ryukyu Limestone Formation · Sakishima Group1
- Era Beds Formation1
- Miyako-jima Formation · Ryukyu Group1
- Rembang Formation1
- Gelingseh Formation1
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The named rock units Trachyphyllia geoffroyi has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Trachyphyllia geoffroyi and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Trachyphyllia geoffroyi and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
137 taxa- Cycloseris cyclolites3 sites
- Porites3 sites
- Alveopora daedalea2 sites
- Cyphastrea2 sites
- Diploastrea heliopora2 sites
- Dipsastraea favus2 sites
- Echinopora crassatina2 sites
- Flabellum irregulare2 sites
- Fungia2 sites
- Fungia fungites2 sites
- Galaxea astreata2 sites
- Pachyseris speciosa2 sites
- Seriatopora hystrix2 sites
- Acanthastrea1 site
- Acanthastrea echinata1 site
- Acanthastrea hillae1 site
- Acropora1 site
- Acropora duncani1 site
- Acropora horrida1 site
- Acropora muricata1 site
- Acropora pharaonis1 site
- Alveopora polyacantha1 site
- Alveopora verrilliana1 site
- Amphihelia alternans1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Trachyphyllia geoffroyi, 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
6 references- Die Anthozoenfauna des Jungtertiärs von Borneo [Anthozoa from the Upper Tertiary of Borneo]2
- Interstadial coral reef terraces and relative sea-level changes during marine oxygen isotope stages 3-4, Kikai Island, central Ryukyus, Japan1
- Coral species stability in reef corals of Papua New Guinea and the Indo-Pacific1
- Community Structures of Recent and Pleistocene Hermatypic Corals in the Ryukyu Islands, Japan1
- Geology of Ishigaki-shima Ryukyu-retto1
- Neue Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Korallenfauna des Tertiärs von Java. I: Die Korallen des Eocen und des älteren Neogen [The Tertiary coral fauna of Java. I: Eocene and Lower Neogene corals]1
Each of the 7 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 Trachyphyllia geoffroyi
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- bondolo
- Licence
- CC BY 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Trachyphyllia geoffroyi 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 itTrachyphyllia through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Audouin 1826)