Ceratolithus
Michal Kucera · CC0 · via GBIF. 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
- CeratolithaceaePBDB
- 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 471 million years on record.
The record covers at least 471.3 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 478.8 Mya to 0 Mya.
1,272 occurrences of Ceratolithus 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
1,272 occurrences- Ordovician2%
- Paleoceneunder 1%
- Eoceneunder 1%
- Oligoceneunder 1%
- Miocene9%
- Pliocene40%
- Pleistocene48%
- Holoceneunder 1%
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
9 formations
- Dawan Formation13
- Meitan Formation8
- Zhitai Formation2
- Xiliangsi Formation1
- Hongsiya Formation1
- Shinianpan Formation1
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The named rock units Ceratolithus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1,243 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Ceratolithus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Ceratolithus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
208 taxa- Helicosphaera carteri124 sites
- Calcidiscus leptoporus123 sites
- Discoaster114 sites
- Discoaster brouweri112 sites
- Florisphaera95 sites
- Umbilicosphaera88 sites
- Gephyrocapsa86 sites
- Pseudoemiliania85 sites
- Reticulofenestra pseudoumbilicus79 sites
- Calcidiscus macintyrei64 sites
- Discoaster variabilis64 sites
- Discoaster surculus63 sites
- Reticulofenestra63 sites
- Rhabdosphaera60 sites
- Sphenolithus abies60 sites
- Syracosphaera59 sites
- Pontosphaera43 sites
- Coccolithus pelagicus41 sites
- Reticulofenestra minuta39 sites
- Helicosphaera sellii36 sites
- Ningkianolithus30 sites
- Calcidiscus29 sites
- Umbellosphaera29 sites
- Amaurolithus27 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 1,012 sites for Ceratolithus, 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
91 references- Site U1476101
- Site U144787
- Site U147483
- Site U148275
- Site U144869
- Site U144551
- Site U145150
- Site U145048
- Site U144339
- Site U148030
- Site U143728
- Site U148927
Each of the 1,272 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. 79 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 Ceratolithus
- Source
- GBIF
- Credit
- Michal Kucera
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Ceratolithus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itCeratolithaceae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Kamptner 1950