Cystistroma

Yale Peabody Museum · 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
- StromatoceriidaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feeder, photosymbioticPBDB, for Stromatoporoidea
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Stromatoporoidea
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Stromatoporoidea
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Stromatoporoidea
Time the record covers
At least 7.7 million years on record.
The record covers at least 457.2 Mya to 449.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 471.3 Mya to 443.1 Mya.
18 occurrences of Cystistroma on record, most of them in the Ordovician. 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
18 occurrences- Ordovician100%
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
8 formations
- Fossil Hill Limestone Formation · Cliefden Caves Group5
- Bobcaygeon Formation2
- Vasalemma Formation2
- Belubula Formation1
- Regans Creek Limestone Formation1
- Ottawa Formation1
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The named rock units Cystistroma has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Cystistroma and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Cystistroma and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
86 taxa- Bajgolia5 sites
- Coccoseris5 sites
- Gorbyoceras5 sites
- Hillophyllum5 sites
- Nyctopora5 sites
- Eodinobolus4 sites
- Eofletcheria4 sites
- Labechiella4 sites
- Rhynchotrema4 sites
- Troedssonella4 sites
- Batostoma3 sites
- Labechia3 sites
- Pliomerina3 sites
- Pseudobasilicus3 sites
- Remopleurides3 sites
- Rosenella3 sites
- Stratodictyon3 sites
- Tetradium3 sites
- Acidolites2 sites
- Anoptambonites2 sites
- Austraphylloporina sp.2 sites
- Catenipora tapaensis2 sites
- Cliefdenoceras sp.2 sites
- Dinorthis2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Cystistroma, 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- Ordovician and Llandoverian Stromatoporoidea of Estonia6
- Stromatoporoidea from the Ordovician rocks of central and eastern Canada5
- Late Ordovician articulate brachiopods from central New South Wales, Australia3
- Ordovician island biotas: New South Wales record and global implications2
- Ordovician Trimerrillacean brachiopod shell beds1
- The geology of the Licking Hole Creek area, near Walli, central western New South Wales1
Each of the 18 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. 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 Cystistroma
- Source
- GBIF
- Credit
- Yale Peabody Museum
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Cystistroma 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 itStromatoceriidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Etheridge 1895