Tretodictyidae
Tretodictyidae is a family of glass sponges in the order Sceptrulophora.

Internet Archive Book Images · No restrictions · 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
- HexactinosaPBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Hexactinosa
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Hexactinosa
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Hexactinosa
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Hexactinellida
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Hexactinellida
Time the record covers
At least 153 million years on record.
The record covers at least 165.3 Mya to 11.63 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 168.2 Mya to 7.246 Mya.
29 occurrences of Tretodictyidae on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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
29 occurrencesThese 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
8 formations
- Vic Marls Formation5
- Tutuiri Greensand Formation4
- Lincoln Creek Formation2
- Takatika Grit Formation · Tioriori Group2
- West Melbury Marly Chalk Formation · Chalk Group2
- Chiampo Formation2
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The named rock units Tretodictyidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 10 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Tretodictyidae and its relatives
EoceneWhere Tretodictyidae and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
383 taxa- Hexactinella7 sites
- Callicylix eocenicus5 sites
- Brachiolites4 sites
- Eurete4 sites
- Guettardiscyphia thiolati4 sites
- Pleuroguettardia4 sites
- Rhizopoterion4 sites
- Laocoetis patula3 sites
- Laocoetis virgatula3 sites
- Sarophora aptiensis3 sites
- Andreaea micropora2 sites
- Aphrocallistes verrucosus2 sites
- Corallistes2 sites
- Eurete formosum2 sites
- Laocaetis2 sites
- Leptophragma2 sites
- Periphragella plicata2 sites
- Phlyctia expansa2 sites
- Prohexactinella subconica2 sites
- Regadrella2 sites
- Reguantella2 sites
- Siphonia2 sites
- Trochobolus dentatus2 sites
- Acarinina1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Tretodictyidae, 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
12 references- Eocene siliceous sponges from the Ebro Basin (Catalonia, Spain)5
- An Early Paleogene sponge fauna, Chatham Island, New Zealand4
- Les spongiaires siliceux du Tortonien des Betiques (Miocene de l'Espagne du Sud): especes nouvelles ou peu connues, II: Hexactinellides [Tortonian siliceous sponges from the Betics (Miocene of southern Spain): new or little known species, II: Hexactinellida]3
- Contribution a l'etude des spongiaires siliceux du Cretace inferieur3
- Die Kieselspongien der oberen Kreide von Nordwestdeutschland, Teil 2 Triaxonia (Hexactinellida) [Upper Cretaceous sponges from north-western Germany, part 2 Triaxonia (Hexactinellida)]3
- A highly diverse siliceous sponge fauna (Porifera: Hexactinellida, Demospongiae) from the Eocene of north-eastern Italy: systematics and palaeoecology2
- Siliceous sponges of the Takatika Grit (Cretaceous-Paleogene), Chatham Islands, south Pacific2
- Fossil sponges from a localized cold-seep limestone in Oligocene rocks of the Olympic Peninsula, Washington2
- Hexactinellid faunas in the chalk of England and Ireland2
- Middle Jurassic Porifera from Kachchh, western India1
- A monograph of the Upper Cretaceous Hexactinellida of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Part IV1
- Contribution a l'etude des spongiaires siliceux du Crétacé supérieur du nord de la France1
Each of the 29 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 Tretodictyidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Internet Archive Book Images
- Licence
- No restrictions
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Tretodictyidae 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
- 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 itHexactinosa through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Schulze 1887