Beecheria
Searched as Beecheria latum. The Paleobiology Database treats Beecheria as the accepted name.
Beecheria is an extinct genus of brachiopod belonging to the order Terebratulida and family Beecheriidae. Fossils of this genus have been found in Mississippian to Permian beds in Eurasia, Australia, North America, and South America. The genus was part of the Levipustula fauna characteristic of cold water conditions. "Nests" of Beecheria have been found in fossil low temperature hydrothermal vent communities from the early Carboniferous in Newfoundland.

via iDigBio · CC0 · via iDigBio. 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
- BeecheriidaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Terebratulida
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Terebratulida
- Motility
- stationaryPBDB, for Terebratulida
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Rhynchonellata
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Lophophorata
Time the record covers
At most 17 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 346.7 Mya and 330.3 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Beecheria 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
1 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
1 formation
- Miller Creek and Wentworth Station Formation · Windsor Group1
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Beecheria has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Beecheria and its relatives
CarboniferousWhere Beecheria and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.
Found in the same rock
1,829 taxa- Composita32 sites
- Cleiothyridina31 sites
- Composita subtilita27 sites
- Fenestella27 sites
- Eumetria22 sites
- Fistulipora21 sites
- Pentremites21 sites
- Echinoidea20 sites
- Derbyia19 sites
- Archimedes17 sites
- Orthotetes17 sites
- Torynifer17 sites
- Anthracospirifer leidyi16 sites
- Cornulites16 sites
- Linoproductus16 sites
- Polypora16 sites
- Camptocrinus15 sites
- Hustedia mormoni15 sites
- Paladin15 sites
- Parajuresania nebrascensis15 sites
- Productida15 sites
- Rhombopora15 sites
- Schizodus15 sites
- Dichocrinus14 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 164 sites for Beecheria, 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 doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1

Picture of Beecheria
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Beecheria 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Beecheria”
- 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 itBeecheriidae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Hall and Clarke 1893)