Membranipora
Membranipora is a genus of bryozoans in the family Membraniporidae. A typical example is the widely distributed species Membranipora membranacea that commonly encrusts seaweeds, particularly fronds of the kelps Laminaria digitata, L. hyperborea, and Saccorhiza polyschides.

Uncredited · Public Domain · 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
- MembraniporidaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Cheilostomata
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Cheilostomata
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Cheilostomata
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Gymnolaemata
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Lophophorata
Time the record covers
At least 100 million years on record.
The record covers at least 100.5 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 113.2 Mya to 11.7 ka.
81 occurrences of Membranipora on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
81 occurrences- Early Cretaceous2%
- Late Cretaceous25%
- Paleocene15%
- Eocene7%
- Oligocene9%
- Miocene27%
- Pliocene5%
- Pleistocene10%
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
22 formations
- Dakota Formation4
- Acredale Formation4
- Woodbine Formation3
- Bowden Formation · Coastal Group3
- Kiowa Formation2
- Marianna Limestone Formation2
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The named rock units Membranipora has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 45 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Membranipora and its relatives
MioceneWhere Membranipora and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
1,843 taxa- Microporella ciliata10 sites
- Cellepora8 sites
- Reteporella8 sites
- Cellaria fistulosa7 sites
- Hippoporella pauper7 sites
- Metrarabdotos7 sites
- Schizomavella7 sites
- Umbonula7 sites
- Anomia6 sites
- Cellaria contigua6 sites
- Crassostrea6 sites
- Cribrilaria radiata6 sites
- Crisia6 sites
- Disporella6 sites
- Electra monostachys6 sites
- Elphidium6 sites
- Quinqueloculina6 sites
- Rhynchozoon monoceros6 sites
- Schedocleidochasma incisa6 sites
- Schizostomella dubia6 sites
- Serpula6 sites
- Spirorbis6 sites
- Ybselosoecia6 sites
- Adeonellopsis yarraensis5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 55 sites for Membranipora, 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
33 references- Quelques Membraniporides du Cretace de l'Aures (Algerie) [Cretaceous Membraniporidae from Aures (Algeria)10
- Fossil cheilostomatous polyzoa from south-west Victoria9
- A bryozoan and foraminifera association from the Miocene of Podbrezice, south Moravia (Czech Republic): an environmental history7
- Kalken paa Saltholm6
- Evolution of Organogenic Carbonate Buildups in the Middle through Late Miocene of the Euxine–Caspian Basin (Eastern Paratethys)4
- Paleontology of the Greenhorn cylcothem (Cretaceous: late Cenomanian to middle Turonian) at Black Mesa, northeastern Arizona4
- The fauna and paleoecology of the Late Pleistocene marine sediments of southeastern Virginia4
- North American early Tertiary Bryozoa4
- Larger invertebrate fossils of the Woodbine formation (Cenomanian) of Texas3
- Miocene Molluscs from Bowden, Jamaica. Part 2: Gastropods and discussion of results3
- Animal-plant relationships and paleobiogeography of an Eocene seagrass community from Florida2
- Relation between currents and the growth of Paleocene reef-mounds2
Each of the 81 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. 21 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 Membranipora
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Membranipora 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.
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 itMembraniporidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Blainville 1834