Coccolithus

Coccolithus is a genus of unicellular haptophytes in the family Coccolithaceae.

Coccolithus

Richard Lampitt, Jeremy Young, The Natural History Museum, London · CC BY 2.5 · 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
PrymnesiophycidaePBDB
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 83 million years on record.

The record covers at least 83.6 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 8245 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 17 of 8245 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 127 of 8245 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 1394 of 8245 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 915 of 8245 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 2293 of 8245 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1064 of 8245 occurrencesPleistocene — about 2425 of 8245 occurrences103–99 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences99–96 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences96–92 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences92–89 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences89–85 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences85–82 Mya — about 2 occurrences82–79 Mya — about 2 occurrences79–75 Mya — about 2 occurrences75–72 Mya — about 2 occurrences72–68 Mya — about 5 occurrences68–65 Mya — about 15 occurrences65–62 Mya — about 39 occurrences62–58 Mya — about 54 occurrences58–55 Mya — about 59 occurrences55–51 Mya — about 117 occurrences51–48 Mya — about 111 occurrences48–44 Mya — about 219 occurrences44–41 Mya — about 247 occurrences41–38 Mya — about 285 occurrences38–34 Mya — about 333 occurrences34–31 Mya — about 311 occurrences31–27 Mya — about 239 occurrences27–24 Mya — about 329 occurrences24–21 Mya — about 386 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 361 occurrences17–14 Mya — about 409 occurrences14–10 Mya — about 493 occurrences10–6.8 Mya — about 496 occurrences6.8–3.4 Mya — about 916 occurrences3.4–0 Mya — about 2815 occurrences83.6 Mya11.7 ka103 Mya0 Mya

8,245 occurrences of Coccolithus 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

8,245 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

24 formations

Butano — 37.42°N, 122.20°WButano — 37.34°N, 122.21°WButano — 37.27°N, 122.29°WMap — 9.55°N, 138.15°EMap — 9.56°N, 138.20°ECampo Bola — 51.74°S, 69.17°WCampo Bola — 52.17°S, 69.04°WBorbon — 1.00°N, 79.75°WWadi Esh-Shallala — 31.57°N, 37.12°EBlue Bluff — 33.14°N, 81.76°WEsmeraldas — 1.00°N, 79.75°WBrockenhurst Beds — 50.82°N, 1.57°WLangental Beds — 27.40°S, 15.41°EPedro Luro — 39.50°S, 62.68°WCastle Hayne — 34.37°N, 77.84°WShihmen — 23.91°N, 121.05°EQuilon Limestone — 8.97°N, 76.63°EWilliamsburg — 33.40°N, 79.93°WBlue Clay — 40.47°N, 17.30°ESalamanca — 45.81°S, 69.06°WKivinje — 10.02°S, 39.68°EMonterey — 33.59°N, 117.71°WPorters Creek — 36.42°N, 89.56°WClayton — 36.42°N, 89.56°WBolago Marl — 46.05°N, 11.93°EPedro Luro — 39.71°S, 61.04°WPaleocene subsurface — 42.49°S, 63.63°WColorado — 39.50°S, 62.68°W

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The named rock units Coccolithus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8,176 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Coccolithus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Coccolithus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,059 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records at least 1,519 sites for Coccolithus, 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

162 references

Each of the 8,245 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. 150 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 Coccolithus

Credit
Richard Lampitt, Jeremy Young, The Natural History Museum, London
Licence
CC BY 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Coccolithus 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 itPrymnesiophycidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Schwartz 1959