Trypanites

Trypanites is a narrow, cylindrical, unbranched boring which is one of the most common trace fossils in hard substrates such as rocks, carbonate hardgrounds and shells. It appears first in the Lower Cambrian, was very prominent in the Ordovician Bioerosion Revolution, and is still commonly formed today. Trypanites is almost always found in calcareous substrates, most likely because the excavating organism used an acid or other chemical agent to dissolve the calcium carbonate. Trypanites is common in the Ordovician and Silurian hardgrounds of Baltica.

A picture published with the record for Trypanites. What it shows has not been checked.

Wilson44691 · 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
IchnofossilsPBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB
Life habit
boringPBDB
Motility
stationaryPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 477 million years on record.

The record covers at least 477.1 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 486.4 Mya to 0 Mya.

Cambrian — about 0 of 32 occurrencesOrdovician — about 8 of 32 occurrencesOrdovicianSilurian — about 5 of 32 occurrencesDevonian — about 2 of 32 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 2 of 32 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 0 of 32 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 32 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 32 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 32 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 2 of 32 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 1 of 32 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 7 of 32 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 2 of 32 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 32 occurrencesPaleocene — about 1 of 32 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 32 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 32 occurrencesMiocene — about 0 of 32 occurrencesPliocene — about 0 of 32 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1 of 32 occurrences496–480 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences480–463 Mya — about 2 occurrences463–447 Mya — about 5 occurrences447–430 Mya — about 2 occurrences430–413 Mya — about 4 occurrences397–380 Mya — about 2 occurrences347–331 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences331–314 Mya — about 1 occurrence215–198 Mya — about 2 occurrences182–165 Mya — about 1 occurrence165–149 Mya — about 6 occurrences149–132 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences116–99 Mya — about 2 occurrences66–50 Mya — about 1 occurrence17–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences477.1 Mya11.7 ka496 Mya0 Mya

32 occurrences of Trypanites on record, most of them in the Ordovician. 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

32 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

22 formations

Ihmert — 51.26°N, 7.65°ELaval — 45.40°N, 73.73°WLaval — 45.48°N, 73.90°WKorallenoolith — 52.25°N, 9.60°ERiachuelo — 10.78°S, 37.16°WEke — 57.27°N, 18.71°EEke — 57.21°N, 18.52°EHale — 35.92°N, 94.17°WCracoe Limestone — 54.05°N, 2.02°WSutton — 51.45°N, 3.50°WBowen — 36.63°N, 82.73°WRed River — 50.08°N, 96.70°WLefipan — 42.73°S, 69.98°WAlcobaça — 39.55°N, 8.98°WMeaford — 43.57°N, 79.62°WVaureal — 49.62°N, 62.67°WLourdes Limestone — 48.70°N, 58.92°WFalmouth — 18.50°N, 77.33°WCalcaires noduleux cendres — 44.64°N, 4.40°EAntalo — 13.62°N, 39.44°EFenhsiang — 30.85°N, 111.38°EEllipsactinia Limestones — 41.83°N, 13.97°EUpper Visby — 57.93°N, 18.73°EOhesaare — 58.00°N, 22.02°E

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The named rock units Trypanites has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Trypanites and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Trypanites and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

578 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 23 sites for Trypanites, 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

26 references

Each of the 32 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. 14 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 content2

Picture of Trypanites

Credit
Wilson44691
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

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 itIchnofossils through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Mägdefrau 1932