Hercynella
Hercynella is a genus of fossil bivalves of late Silurian or Early Devonian age, found in Europe, North America, western Asia, North Africa and Australia. The name was also invalidly applied to a genus of moths now known as Tulaya.

via iDigBio · CC0 · 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
- AntipleuridaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Pteriomorphia
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Pteriomorphia
- Motility
- facultatively mobilePBDB, for Pteriomorphia
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
Time the record covers
At least 33 million years on record.
The record covers at least 426.7 Mya to 393.47 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 443.1 Mya to 358.86 Mya.
46 occurrences of Hercynella 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
46 occurrencesThese 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
10 formations
- Lochkov Formation4
- Wadleigh Limestone Formation4
- Seewarte Kalk Formation3
- Radotin Limestone Formation3
- Syracuse Formation · Salina Group2
- Fiddlers Green Formation · Bertie Group1
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The named rock units Hercynella has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 25 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Hercynella and its relatives
DevonianWhere Hercynella and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.
Found in the same rock
497 taxa- Panenka9 sites
- Orthoceras8 sites
- Howellella7 sites
- Camarotoechia6 sites
- Monograptus6 sites
- Tentaculites6 sites
- Lepidoproetus lepidus5 sites
- Lingula5 sites
- Loxonema5 sites
- Neklania5 sites
- Nuculites5 sites
- Paranowakia5 sites
- Spiniscutellum5 sites
- Denckmannites miser4 sites
- Leonaspis lochkovensis4 sites
- Leperditia4 sites
- Ozarkodina4 sites
- Ozarkodina steinhornensis4 sites
- Polygnathus4 sites
- Carcinosoma3 sites
- Ceratiocaris3 sites
- Ceratonurus3 sites
- Chonetidina3 sites
- Graptolithina3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 28 sites for Hercynella, 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
23 references- Silurian and Early Devonian benthic communities of the Ural-Tien Shan region6
- Le Devonien inferieur biohermal des Alpes Carniques centrales6
- Le Devonien inferieur biohermal des Alpes Carniques Centrales5
- Geology of the Barrandian: A Field Trip Guide. Senckenberg-Buchen, Frankfurt3
- Geology and mineral deposits of southeastern Alaska3
- Bivalvia communities of Bohemian type from the Silurian and Lower Devonian carbonate facies2
- Trilobite assemblages in the Devonian of the Barrandian area and their relations to palaeoenvironments2
- Correlation of the African Silurian rocks2
- Stratigraphy of Upper Silurian Cayugan Evaporites2
- Notes on the Paleozoic faunas and stratigraphy of southeastern Alaska2
- Early Devonian bivalves from Hamar Laghdad, Morocco1
- Oases of biodiversity: Early Devonian palaeoecology at Hamar Laghdad, Morocco1
Each of the 46 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. 11 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 Hercynella
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Hercynella”
- 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 itAntipleuridae through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Kayser 1878