Gorbyoceras

via iDigBio · via iDigBio. 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
- ProteoceratidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Orthocerida
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Orthocerida
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Orthocerida
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Orthocerida
Time the record covers
At least 38 million years on record.
The record covers at least 477.1 Mya to 438.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 486.85 Mya to 432.9 Mya.
65 occurrences of Gorbyoceras 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
65 occurrences- Ordovician98%
- Silurian2%
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
- Bad Cache Rapids Formation6
- Whitewater Formation5
- Fossil Hill Limestone Formation · Cliefden Caves Group4
- Saluda Formation4
- Bardahessiagh Formation4
- Boda Limestone Formation4
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The named rock units Gorbyoceras 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. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Gorbyoceras and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Gorbyoceras and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
922 taxa- Diestoceras13 sites
- Beloitoceras12 sites
- Endoceras10 sites
- Actinoceras8 sites
- Manitoulinoceras8 sites
- Michelinoceras8 sites
- Rafinesquina8 sites
- Bajgolia7 sites
- Fayettoceras7 sites
- Maclurites7 sites
- Metaspyroceras7 sites
- Strophomena7 sites
- Tetradium7 sites
- Whitfieldoceras7 sites
- Zittelloceras7 sites
- Antiplectoceras6 sites
- Beloitoceras pandion6 sites
- Cameroceras6 sites
- Coccoseris6 sites
- Cyrtocerina6 sites
- Endoceras proteiforme6 sites
- Gonioceras6 sites
- Isorthoceras junceum6 sites
- Oncoceras6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 61 sites for Gorbyoceras, 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
28 references- Middle and Upper Ordovician nautiloid cephalopods of the Cincinnati Arch region of Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio7
- Biostratigraphy of the Middle and Late Ordovician cephalopods of the Upper Mississippi Valley area6
- The Cephalopod Fauna of the Bardahessaigh Formation (Caradoc Series) of Pomeroy, County Tyrone5
- Ordovician megafauna, Melville Peninsula, southeastern District of Franklin5
- The fossil fauna of the Ordovician in the Cincinnati Region5
- The cephalopods of Boda Limestone, Late Ordovocian, of Dalarna, Sweden4
- The Cephalopod Fauna of the Killey Bridge Formation (Ordovician, Ashgill), Pomeroy, County Tyrone4
- Nautiloids of the Lourdes Formation (Middle Ordovician), Port au Port Peninsula, western Newfoundland3
- Comparative geographic and environmental diversity dynamics of gastropods and bivalves during the Ordovician Radiation (M.S. thesis, University of Cincinnati)2
- Ordovician island biotas: New South Wales record and global implications2
- Late Ordovician articulate brachiopods from central New South Wales, Australia2
- Regional Stratigraphic Table of North China2
Each of the 65 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. 16 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 Gorbyoceras
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Gorbyoceras 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 itProteoceratidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Shimizu and Obata 1935