Gastrochaenolites

Gastrochaenolites is a trace fossil formed as a clavate (club-shaped) boring in a hard substrate such as a shell, rock or carbonate hardground. The aperture of the boring is narrower than the main chamber and may be circular, oval, or dumb-bell shaped. Gastrochaenolites is most commonly attributed to bioeroding bivalves such as Lithophaga and Gastrochaena. The fossil ranges from the Ordovician to the Recent. The first Lower Jurassic Gastrochaenolites ichnospecies is Gastrochaenolites messisbugi Bassi, Posenato, Nebelsick, 2017. This is the first record of boreholes and their producers in one of the larger bivalves of the globally occurring Lithiotis fauna which is a unique facies in the Lower Jurassic Tethys and Panthalassa.

A picture published with the record for Gastrochaenolites. What it shows has not been checked.

Wilson44691 · CC0 · 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
IchnofossilsPBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB
Life habit
boringPBDB
Motility
stationaryPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 318 million years on record.

The record covers at least 318.6 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 323.4 Mya to 0 Mya.

Carboniferous — about 1 of 77 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 0 of 77 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 77 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 77 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 77 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 2 of 77 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 3 of 77 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 13 of 77 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 12 of 77 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 19 of 77 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 4 of 77 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 77 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 77 occurrencesMiocene — about 9 of 77 occurrencesPliocene — about 4 of 77 occurrencesPleistocene — about 8 of 77 occurrences330–319 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences319–308 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences209–198 Mya — about 2 occurrences176–165 Mya — about 2 occurrences165–154 Mya — about 10 occurrences154–143 Mya — about 4 occurrences143–132 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences132–121 Mya — about 2 occurrences121–110 Mya — about 7 occurrences110–99 Mya — about 3 occurrences99–88 Mya — about 2 occurrences77–66 Mya — about 17 occurrences66–55 Mya — about 4 occurrences55–44 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences33–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–11 Mya — about 9 occurrences11–0 Mya — about 13 occurrences318.6 Mya11.7 ka330 Mya0 Mya

77 occurrences of Gastrochaenolites on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

77 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

30 formations

Jagüel — 38.10°S, 68.39°WGrès verts helvétiques — 46.10°N, 6.82°EGrès verts helvétiques — 46.04°N, 6.62°EGrès verts helvétiques — 46.00°N, 6.70°EGrès verts helvétiques — 45.86°N, 6.45°EAssomada — 14.91°N, 23.49°WJaffna Limestone — 9.82°N, 80.03°EMaastricht — 50.87°N, 5.77°EMaastricht — 50.80°N, 5.68°EAgrio — 37.62°S, 70.04°WAgrio — 37.65°S, 70.22°WRiachuelo — 10.78°S, 37.16°WHale — 35.92°N, 94.17°WSutton — 51.45°N, 3.50°WLefipan — 42.73°S, 69.98°WAlcobaça — 39.55°N, 8.98°WFalmouth — 18.50°N, 77.33°WCalcaires noduleux cendres — 44.64°N, 4.40°EBernissart Calcirudites — 50.60°N, 3.38°ESpilsby Sandstone — 53.48°N, 0.35°WHythe — 51.27°N, 0.52°EMatmor — 30.93°N, 34.97°EAntalo — 13.62°N, 39.44°EKorallenoolith — 52.25°N, 9.60°ECala di Labra — 41.37°N, 9.18°EEllipsactinia Limestones — 41.83°N, 13.97°EEn Yorqe'am — 30.66°N, 35.09°EKamar-e-Mehdi — 33.00°N, 56.50°EReuchenette — 47.40°N, 7.03°E

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The named rock units Gastrochaenolites has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 20 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Gastrochaenolites and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Gastrochaenolites and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

618 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 39 sites for Gastrochaenolites, 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

35 references

Each of the 77 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. 23 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 Gastrochaenolites

Credit
Wilson44691
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itIchnofossils through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Leymerie 1842