Ceratotrochus
Ceratotrochus is a genus of cnidarians belonging to the family Caryophylliidae.

Cairns S, Kitahara M (2012) · CC BY 3.0 · via Wikidata/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
- CaryophylliidaePBDB
- Diet
- microcarnivorePBDB, for Caryophylliidae
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunal, solitary, clonalPBDB, for Caryophylliidae
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Caryophylliidae
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Anthozoa
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Scleractinia
Time the record covers
At least 93 million years on record.
The record covers at least 93.9 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 11.7 ka.
84 occurrences of Ceratotrochus on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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
84 occurrencesThese 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
11 formations
- Termofourà Formation10
- Korytnica Clays Formation3
- Ardanatz Sandstone Formation3
- Qom Formation2
- Gurabo Formation2
- Chaaldzhin Formation1
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The named rock units Ceratotrochus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 58 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Ceratotrochus and its relatives
MioceneWhere Ceratotrochus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
825 taxa- Balanophyllia5 sites
- Caryophyllia5 sites
- Dendrophyllia4 sites
- Desmophyllum4 sites
- Flabellum4 sites
- Stephanophyllia elegans4 sites
- Trochocyathus4 sites
- Trochocyathus plicatus4 sites
- Amalda glandiformis3 sites
- Balanophyllia praelonga3 sites
- Caryophyllia (Acanthocyathus)3 sites
- Coralliophila3 sites
- Deltocyathus italicus3 sites
- Flabellum zuffardii3 sites
- Madracis ornata3 sites
- Paracyathus turonensis3 sites
- Peponocyathus duncani3 sites
- Spondylus3 sites
- Stephanophyllia imperialis reussi3 sites
- Stylocora3 sites
- Tarbellastraea reussiana3 sites
- Anadara2 sites
- Astrangia manthelanensis2 sites
- Astrocoenia bistellata2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 20 sites for Ceratotrochus, 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
31 references- Recherches sur les Madreporaires et les formations recifales Miocenes de la Mediterranee occidentale [Miocene corals and reefs from the western Mediterranean]18
- Les Madréporaires miocènes du Maroc10
- Descriptions of new species of corals from the Australian Tertiaries, Part 57
- Miocene Scleractinia from the Holy Cross Mountains, Poland; I, Caryophyliidae, Flabellidae, Dendrophyliidae, and Micrabaciidae5
- Sponges and corals from the Middle Eocene (Bartonian) marly formations of the Pamplona Basin (Navarre, western Pyrenees): taphonomy, taxonomy, and paleoenvironments3
- Une faune inédite de coraux scléractiniaires dans le gisement chattien d'Escornebéou (Landes, SW France); stratigraphie, systématique et paléoécologie3
- Neogene paleontology in the northern Dominican Republic, 5. The suborders Caryophylliina and Dendrophylliina (Anthozoa, Scleractinia)3
- Kuzmicheva, 19873
- Magyarorszagi Oligocen korallok [Oligocene corals from Hungary]3
- Descriptions of new species of corals from the Australian Tertiaries, Part 73
- New paleoenvironmental insights on the Miocene condensed phosphatic layer of Salento (southern Italy) unlocked by the coral‑mollusc fossil archive2
- Scleractinian corals from the Oligocene of the Qom Formation (Esfahan-Sirjan fore-arc basin, Iran)2
Each of the 84 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. 19 further references are not listed. 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 Ceratotrochus
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Cairns S, Kitahara M (2012)
- Licence
- CC BY 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Ceratotrochus 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.
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 itCaryophylliidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Milne-Edwards and Haime 1848