Amphora
Searched as Amphora ovalis pediculus. The Paleobiology Database treats Amphora as the accepted name.
Amphora is a major genus of marine and freshwater diatoms. With over 1000 species, it is one of the largest genera of diatoms. These diatoms are recognized by their strongly dorsiventral frustules, which means that their ridges lie close to the ventral margin of the valve, and their girdle is much wider on the dorsal side.

Uncredited · 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
- CatenulaceaePBDB
- Diet
- "photoautotroph"PBDB, for Bacillariophyceae
- Environment
- marine,brackish,freshwaterPBDB, for Bacillariophyceae
Time the record covers
At most 2.6 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 11.7 ka, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Amphora 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
1 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
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.
Amphora and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Amphora and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
136 taxa- Fragilaria7 sites
- Cocconeis5 sites
- Actinocyclus4 sites
- Diploneis4 sites
- Paralia sulcata4 sites
- Thalassionema4 sites
- Thalassiosira4 sites
- Fragilariopsis3 sites
- Navicula3 sites
- Neodenticula3 sites
- Rhizosolenia3 sites
- Stephanodiscus3 sites
- Thalassiothrix longissima3 sites
- Actinocyclus ellipticus2 sites
- Actinocyclus octonarius2 sites
- Bacterosira2 sites
- Coscinodiscus marginatus2 sites
- Delphineis2 sites
- Melosira2 sites
- Nitzschia2 sites
- Paralia2 sites
- Porosira2 sites
- Stephanodiscus excentricus2 sites
- Abies balsamea1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Amphora, 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 1 occurrence 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 content2
Picture of Amphora
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Licence
- CC0 Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
MorphoSource 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 itCatenulaceae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Kützing 1844