Erniettomorpha
Erniettomorpha is an extinct class, which is commonly considered a part of the phylum Petalonamae, and were around in the late Ediacaran period from 567.3 – 538.8 Ma, with potential records in the lowermost Cambrian of the United States at 518 Ma. They are commonly infaunal in nature, living partially buried within the substrate, and can also be found across the world, excluding the Polar regions and South America. The type genus of the class is Ernietta.

Uncredited · 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
- AnimaliaPBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB
- Motility
- stationaryPBDB
- Vision
- blindPBDB
Time the record covers
At least 17 million years on record.
The record covers at least 538.8 Mya to 521 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 635 Mya to 506.5 Mya.
97 occurrences of Erniettomorpha 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
97 occurrences- Cambrian5%
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
21 formations
- Rawnsley Quartzite Formation · Wilpena Group26
- Dabis Formation · Nama Group18
- Urusis Formation · Nama Group10
- Verkhovka Formation · Ust-Pinega Group8
- Wood Canyon Formation6
- Nudaus Formation · Nama Group5
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The named rock units Erniettomorpha has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Erniettomorpha and its relatives
CambrianWhere Erniettomorpha and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.
Found in the same rock
189 taxa- Aspidella19 sites
- Pteridinium simplex12 sites
- Ernietta plateauensis11 sites
- Phyllozoon hanseni11 sites
- Pteridinium10 sites
- Rangea schneiderhoehni10 sites
- Dickinsonia costata9 sites
- Charniodiscus7 sites
- Swartpuntia germsi7 sites
- Pteridinium carolinaensis6 sites
- Aulozoon soliorum5 sites
- Funisia5 sites
- Helminthopsis5 sites
- Parvancorina5 sites
- Rugoconites5 sites
- Swartpuntia5 sites
- Aulozoon4 sites
- Beltanelliformis4 sites
- Palaeopascichnus4 sites
- Rangea4 sites
- Tribrachidium4 sites
- Tribrachidium heraldicum4 sites
- Tulaneia amabilia4 sites
- Arborea arborea3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 69 sites for Erniettomorpha, 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
34 references- Supplemental Data for Ediacaran Diversification Rates17
- Ediacaran paleobiology and biostratigraphy of the Nama Group, Namibia, with emphasis on the erniettomorphs, tubular and trace fossils, and a new sponge, Arimasia germsi n. gen. n. sp.7
- The Neoproterozoic of southwestern Africa, with emphasis on platform stratigraphy and paleontology5
- Tulaneia amabilia n. gen. n. sp.: a new erniettomorph from the Wood Canyon Formation, Nevada and the age of the Ediacaran–Cambrian transition in the Great Basin4
- Phyllozoon and Aulozoon : key components of a novel Ediacaran death assemblage in Bathtub Gorge, Heysen Range, South Australia4
- Piecing together the puzzle of the Ediacara Biota: Excavation and reconstruction at the Ediacara National Heritage site Nilpena (South Australia)4
- Ernietta from the late Edicaran Nama Group, Namibia4
- How well do fossil assemblages of the Ediacara Biota tell time?4
- A new metazoan from the Vendian of the White Sea, Russia, with possible affinities to the ascidians4
- A review of the frond-like fossils of the Ediacara Assemblage4
- Pushing the boundary: A calibrated Ediacaran-Cambrian stratigraphic record from the Nama Group in northwestern Republic of South Africa3
- Sedimentology and palaeoecology of Ernietta-bearing Ediacaran deposits in southern Namibia: Implications for infaunal vendobiont communities3
Each of the 97 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. 22 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 Erniettomorpha
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Erniettomorpha was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itAnimalia through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Pflug 1972)