Braarudosphaera bigelowii

Braarudosphaera bigelowii is a coastal coccolithophore in the fossil record going back 100 million years to the Late Cretaceous. Due to endosymbiontic integration, it has obtained a nitrogen-fixing organelle called a nitroplast.

Braarudosphaera bigelowii

Monteiro, F.M., Bach, L.T., Brownlee, C., Bown, P., Rickaby, R.E., Poulton, A.J., Tyrrell, T., Beaufort, L., Dutkiewi… · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
BraarudosphaeraPBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Haptophyta
Life habit
planktonic, depth=surfacePBDB, for Haptophyta
Motility
passively mobilePBDB, for Haptophyta
Environment
oceanic,oligotrophic,marine,brackishPBDB, for Haptophyta

Time the record covers

At least 89 million years on record.

The record covers at least 89.8 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 93.9 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 9 of 369 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 6 of 369 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 25 of 369 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 17 of 369 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 38 of 369 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 71 of 369 occurrencesPleistocene — about 201 of 369 occurrences96–93 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences93–89 Mya — about 2 occurrences86–83 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences83–80 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences80–77 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences77–73 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences73–70 Mya — about 1 occurrence70–67 Mya — about 2 occurrences67–64 Mya — about 3 occurrences64–61 Mya — about 3 occurrences61–57 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences57–54 Mya — about 3 occurrences54–51 Mya — about 4 occurrences51–48 Mya — about 4 occurrences48–45 Mya — about 5 occurrences45–42 Mya — about 5 occurrences42–38 Mya — about 2 occurrences38–35 Mya — about 1 occurrence35–32 Mya — about 14 occurrences32–29 Mya — about 1 occurrence29–26 Mya — about 1 occurrence26–22 Mya — about 2 occurrences22–19 Mya — about 6 occurrences19–16 Mya — about 6 occurrences16–13 Mya — about 7 occurrences13–9.6 Mya — about 8 occurrences9.6–6.4 Mya — about 7 occurrences6.4–3.2 Mya — about 54 occurrences3.2–0 Mya — about 224 occurrences89.8 Mya11.7 ka96 Mya0 Mya

369 occurrences of Braarudosphaera bigelowii on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

369 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

10 formations

Second White Specks — 49.50°N, 112.17°WLa Colonia — 42.83°S, 68.45°WLa Colonia — 43.05°S, 69.05°WCampo Bola — 51.74°S, 69.17°WBlue Bluff — 33.14°N, 81.76°WQuilon Limestone — 8.97°N, 76.63°EWilliamsburg — 33.40°N, 79.93°WAvezac — 43.67°N, 1.11°WPedro Luro — 39.71°S, 61.04°WJagüel — 39.86°S, 67.62°WSaldeño — 33.98°S, 69.71°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Braarudosphaera bigelowii has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 356 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Braarudosphaera bigelowii and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Braarudosphaera bigelowii and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

590 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 365 sites for Braarudosphaera bigelowii, and this reads 240 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

65 references

Each of the 369 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. 53 further references are not listed. 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 Braarudosphaera bigelowii

Credit
Monteiro, F.M., Bach, L.T., Brownlee, C., Bown, P., Rickaby, R.E., Poulton, A.J., Tyrrell, T., Beaufort, L., Dutkiewi…
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Braarudosphaera bigelowii 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 itBraarudosphaera through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gran and Braarud 1935)