Conocoryphe
Conocoryphe is a genus of primarily eyeless trilobites belonging to the family Conocoryphidae. They lived during the Middle Cambrian period, about 505 million years ago. These arthropods lived on the sea bottom (epifaunal) and lived off dead particulate organic matter.

Skye McDavid · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
- ConocoryphidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Trilobita
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Trilobita
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Trilobita
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Conocoryphidae
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Trilobita
Time the record covers
At most 12 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 508.2 Mya and 497 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
44 occurrences of Conocoryphe on record, most of them in the Cambrian. 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
44 occurrences- Cambrian100%
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
13 formations
- Jince Formation21
- Sosink Formation5
- Koruk Formation4
- Oville Formation2
- Quartzites et Poudingues de Trémentines Formation2
- Ferrals Formation2
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The named rock units Conocoryphe has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Conocoryphe and its relatives
CambrianWhere Conocoryphe and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.
Found in the same rock
124 taxa- Paradoxides (Eccaparadoxides) pusillus14 sites
- Ellipsocephalus12 sites
- Lobocephalina emmrichi11 sites
- Paradoxides (Eccaparadoxides)10 sites
- Skreiaspis spinosus9 sites
- Ctenocephalus8 sites
- Paradoxides (Hydrocephalus)8 sites
- Peronopsis8 sites
- Ptychoparia striata8 sites
- Phalagnostus7 sites
- Solenopleurina tyrovicensis7 sites
- Acadoparadoxides6 sites
- Hydrocephalus carens6 sites
- Phalacroma6 sites
- Agraulos ceticephalus5 sites
- Ceratocystis perneri5 sites
- Paradoxides5 sites
- Acadolenus4 sites
- Acrothele4 sites
- Ceratocystis4 sites
- Derikaspis4 sites
- Jincella prantli4 sites
- Konicekion4 sites
- Lichenoides priscus4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 32 sites for Conocoryphe, 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
19 references- Trilobiti Ceskeho stredniho Kambria [Middle Cambrian trilobites of Bohemia]6
- Middle Cambrian trilobites from the Sosnik Formation, Derik-Mardin district, south-eastern Turkey5
- Cambrian stratigraphy and trilobites of the Samur Dag area, south of Hakkari, southeastern Turkey4
- Asturicystis havliceki sp. nov. (Echinodermata, Homostelea) from the Middle Cambrian of Bohemia (Barrandian area, Czech Republic)4
- Chlupáč et al., 19984
- New fossils sites in the Jince Formation (Middle Cambrian, Bohemia)4
- Révision biostratigraphique du Cambrien moyen du versant méridional de la Montagne Noire (Languedoc, France)2
- Geology of the Barrandian: A Field Trip Guide. Senckenberg-Buchen, Frankfurt2
- Vyscystis ubaghsi gen. et sp.nov., imbricate eocrinoid from Czechoslovakia (Echinodermata, Middle Cambrian)2
- Les trilobites mésocambriens de Cléré-sur-Layon (Massif armoricain)2
- Family Dibrachicystidae (Echinodermata: Rhombifera) from the “Middle” Cambrian of the Barrandian area, Czech Republic1
- Middle Cambrian gogiid echinoderms from Northeast Spain: Taxonomy, palaeoecology, and palaeogeographic implications1
Each of the 44 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. 7 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 content2
Picture of Conocoryphe
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Skye McDavid
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC0 Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Conocoryphe”
- 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 itConocoryphidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hawle and Corda 1847