Mentzeliopsis spinosa
via iDigBio · CC BY · 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
- MentzeliopsisPBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Spiriferinida
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Spiriferinida
- Motility
- stationaryPBDB, for Spiriferinida
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Rhynchonellata
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Lophophorata
Time the record covers
At most 15 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 241.464 Mya and 227.3 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
9 occurrences of Mentzeliopsis spinosa on record, most of them in the Middle Triassic. 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
9 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
2 formations
- Port Molyneux Siltstone Formation · Willsher Group1
- Rabbiters Hut Formation · Corbies Creek Group1
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Mentzeliopsis spinosa has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Mentzeliopsis spinosa and its relatives
Middle TriassicWhere Mentzeliopsis spinosa and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Triassic.
Found in the same rock
37 taxa- Alipunctifera kaihikuana7 sites
- Sakawairhynchia zealandica7 sites
- Fletcherina zealandica6 sites
- Maorirhynchia nuggetensis4 sites
- Spiriferina carolinae4 sites
- Athyris3 sites
- Daonella3 sites
- Punctospirella fragilis3 sites
- Adygella himalayana2 sites
- Aparimella apteryx2 sites
- Alipunctifera1 site
- Atractites otapiriensis1 site
- Balantioselena1 site
- Balantioselena gairi1 site
- Chlamys1 site
- Conularia1 site
- Daonella (Arzelella) indica1 site
- Dentalium1 site
- Grammatodon1 site
- Halorella1 site
- Kamupena greggi1 site
- Lima1 site
- Lingula aoraki1 site
- Manticula problematica1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Mentzeliopsis spinosa, 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
4 references- Some faunas and formations of Kaihikuan Age (Middle Triassic) in the Murihiku Supergroup5
- The Trias of New Zealand2
- Willsher Group and geology of the Triassic Kaka Point coastal section, south-east Otago, New Zealand1
- Triassic fossils from Corbies Creek, north Otago1
Each of the 9 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 doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Mentzeliopsis spinosa
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC BY
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Mentzeliopsis spinosa 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 itMentzeliopsis through timeFormations of the Middle TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Trechmann 1917