Caryocystites

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
- CaryocystitidaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Rhombifera
- Life habit
- intermediate-level epifaunalPBDB, for Rhombifera
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Rhombifera
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Rhombifera
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Echinodermata
Time the record covers
At least 7.7 million years on record.
The record covers at least 457.2 Mya to 449.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 459.7 Mya to 443.1 Mya.
27 occurrences of Caryocystites 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
27 occurrences- Ordovician100%
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
- Dalby Formation6
- Wardell Formation6
- Boda Limestone Formation4
- Chasmops Limestone Formation3
- Kullsberg Formation2
- Dalby Limestone Formation2
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The named rock units Caryocystites has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Caryocystites and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Caryocystites and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
456 taxa- Hemiphragma7 sites
- Pachydictya7 sites
- Batostoma6 sites
- Calyptaulax callicephalus6 sites
- Carabocrinus6 sites
- Escharopora subrecta6 sites
- Girvanella6 sites
- Glyptorthis6 sites
- Graptodictya6 sites
- Isochilina6 sites
- Mimella globosa6 sites
- Pionomena emaciata6 sites
- Receptaculites6 sites
- Rostricellula plena6 sites
- Scenellopora radiata6 sites
- Strophomena incurvata6 sites
- Thaleops conradi6 sites
- Vanuxemia6 sites
- ? Pionodema subaequata circularis5 sites
- Campylorthis deflecta5 sites
- Chasmops4 sites
- Cornucrinus mirus4 sites
- Haplosphaeronis oblonga4 sites
- Heliocrinites granatum4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 24 sites for Caryocystites, 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
7 references- Morphology, growth and taxonomy of the Ordovician rhombiferan Caryocystites8
- Non-Crinoid Pelmatozoa from the Paleozoic of Sweden7
- Stratigraphy of the Lower Middle Ordovician of Tazewell County, Virginia6
- The geology of the Baltic Republics2
- Swedish Late Ordovician marine benthic assemblages and their bearing on brachiopod biogeography2
- The diploporite blastozoan Lepidocalix pulcher from the Middle Ordovician of northern Algeria: Taxonomic revision and palaeoecological implications1
- Evolution and Functional Morphology of the Cystoid Sphaeronites in Britain and Scandinavia1
Each of the 27 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 Caryocystites
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Caryocystites 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itCaryocystitidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Buch 1844