Heliolites

Searched as Heliolites porosus bergeri. The Paleobiology Database treats Heliolites as the accepted name.

Heliolites is a large and heterogenous genus of extinct tabulate corals in the family Heliolitidae. Specimens have been found in Ordovician to Devonian beds in North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. The genus is particularly abundant in the Wellin Member of the Hanonet Formation of Belgium.

Heliolites

Jonathan Chen · CC BY 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
HeliolitidaePBDB
Diet
suspension feeder, photosymbioticPBDB, for Tabulata
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Tabulata
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB, for Tabulata
Vision
blindPBDB, for Anthozoa

Time the record covers

At most 12 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 393.47 Mya and 382.31 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Devonian — about 11 of 11 occurrencesDevonian394–393 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences393–393 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences393–392 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences392–392 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences392–392 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences392–391 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences391–391 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences391–390 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences390–390 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences390–390 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences390–389 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences389–389 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences389–388 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences388–388 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences388–387 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences387–387 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences387–387 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences387–386 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences386–386 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences386–385 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences385–385 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences385–385 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences385–384 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences384–384 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences384–383 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences383–383 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences383–383 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences383–382 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences394 Mya381.8 Mya

11 occurrences of Heliolites on record, most of them in the Devonian. 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

11 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

8 formations

Torringen — 51.02°N, 7.22°EFreilingen — 50.52°N, 6.55°EFreilingen — 51.07°N, 7.37°ENohn — 50.52°N, 6.55°EAhrdorf — 50.52°N, 6.55°EJunkerberg — 50.52°N, 6.55°EAhbach — 50.52°N, 6.55°EWiedenest — 51.02°N, 7.32°EOdershausen — 51.02°N, 7.32°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Heliolites has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Heliolites and its relatives

Devonian

Where Heliolites and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.

Found in the same rock

1,775 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 295 sites for Heliolites, and this reads 240 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

2 references

Each of the 11 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Heliolites

Credit
Jonathan Chen
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

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 itHeliolitidae through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Dana 1846