Hesperorthis tricenaria

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
- HesperorthisPBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Orthida
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Orthida
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Orthida
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Rhynchonellata
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Lophophorata
Time the record covers
At least 3.6 million years on record.
The record covers at least 453.8 Mya to 450.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 458.2 Mya to 445.2 Mya.
76 occurrences of Hesperorthis tricenaria 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
76 occurrences- Ordovician100%
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
32 formations
- Dunleith Formation · Galena Group8
- Witten Limestone Formation7
- Bobcaygeon Formation · Simcoe Group4
- Verulam Formation · Simcoe Group3
- Decorah Formation · Galena Group3
- Farr Formation3
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The named rock units Hesperorthis tricenaria has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 17 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Hesperorthis tricenaria and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Hesperorthis tricenaria and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
563 taxa- Anazyga recurvirostra47 sites
- Glyptorthis bellarugosa34 sites
- Illaenus25 sites
- Paucicrura rogata25 sites
- Pseudolingula iowensis25 sites
- Strophomena incurvata25 sites
- Orthoceras24 sites
- Isotelus gigas23 sites
- Dinorthis meedsi22 sites
- Doleroides22 sites
- Pionodema subaequata22 sites
- Sowerbyella curdsvillensis22 sites
- Tetradium22 sites
- Leperditia21 sites
- Oepikina minnesotensis21 sites
- Rafinesquina trentonensis20 sites
- Rhynchotrema20 sites
- Ceraurus pleurexanthemus19 sites
- Acanthocrania setigera18 sites
- Petrocrania18 sites
- Pionodema17 sites
- Escharopora16 sites
- Parastrophina16 sites
- Rafinesquina16 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 76 sites for Hesperorthis tricenaria, 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
19 references- Biostratigraphy of the Middle and Late Ordovician cephalopods of the Upper Mississippi Valley area17
- Zonation of the Middle and Upper Ordovician strata in northwestern Georgia16
- Brachiopods and trilobites of the Sardeson Beds in the Twin Cities8
- Palaeozoic geology of the Lake Simcoe Area, Ontario8
- Stratigraphy of the Lower Middle Ordovician of Tazewell County, Virginia7
- Pre-Chattanooga stratigraphy in Central Tennessee4
- The Palaeozoic Outlier of Lake Timiskaming, Ontario and Quebec4
- Ordovician of the Tungus Basin (Siberian Platform). Field excursion guidebook1
- Sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy of a mixed carbonate-siliciclastic system within The Ordovician (Caradocian, Mohawkian) epeiric sea, Decorah Formation, Upper Mississippi Valley Region, USA1
- Late Ordovician foreland basin fill: Long Point Group of onshore western Newfoundland1
- Paleoautecology and ontogeny of Cupulocrinus levorsoni Kolata, a Middle Ordovician crinoid from the Guttenberg Formation of Wisconsin1
- The systematics and biostratigraphy of the Brachiopoda of the Decorah Shale at St. Paul, Minnesota1
Each of the 76 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. 7 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 Hesperorthis tricenaria
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Hesperorthis tricenaria 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itHesperorthis through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Conrad 1843)