Clonophycus

Clonophycus is a genus of fossil microalgae. The type species, C. elegans, was found in the Barney Creek Formation, of the Middle Proterozoic of Northern Australia. The authors are uncertain if the microalgae are prokaryotic cyanobacteria or eukaryotic green or red algae.

No picture of Clonophycus was found. Wikipedia and Wikidata were searched and had none. iDigBio and GBIF were not searched: the Paleobiology Database does not place Clonophycus firmly enough to tell it from something else bearing the same name, and a search on the name alone returns whichever of them was photographed. Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
AcritarchaPBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Acritarcha
Environment
marinePBDB, for Acritarcha

Time the record covers

At least 965 million years on record.

The record covers at least 1600 Mya to 635 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 1800 Mya to 538.8 Mya.

Cambrian — about 0 of 12 occurrences1825–1782 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1782–1738 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1738–1694 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1694–1650 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1650–1607 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences1607–1563 Mya — about 1 occurrence1563–1519 Mya — about 1 occurrence1519–1475 Mya — about 1 occurrence1475–1432 Mya — about 1 occurrence1432–1388 Mya — about 1 occurrence1038–995 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences995–951 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences951–907 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences907–863 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences863–820 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences820–776 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences776–732 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences732–688 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences645–601 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences601–557 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences557–514 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1600 Mya635 Mya1825 Mya514 Mya

12 occurrences of Clonophycus on record. 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

12 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

5 formations

Balbirini Dolomite — 16.75°S, 135.74°EBarney Creek — 16.43°S, 136.04°EWumishan — 40.28°N, 116.20°EDenying — 24.56°N, 102.72°EDahongyu — 40.00°N, 117.00°E

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The named rock units Clonophycus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Found in the same rock

42 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Clonophycus, 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

6 references

Each of the 12 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content0

No picture of Clonophycus was found. Wikipedia and Wikidata were searched and had none.

iDigBio and GBIF were not searched: the Paleobiology Database does not place Clonophycus firmly enough to tell it from something else bearing the same name, and a search on the name alone returns whichever of them was photographed.

Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.

No 3D scan of Clonophycus 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 itAcritarcha through time

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Oehler 1977