Micropora
Micropora is a genus of bryozoans in the family Microporidae. Colonies are always encrusting.

Alison M. Fortunato · CC0 · 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
- MicroporidaePBDB
- 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 467 million years on record.
The record covers at least 469.1 Mya to 1.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 471.3 Mya to 774 ka.
80 occurrences of Micropora on record, most of them in the Ordovician. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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
80 occurrences- Ordovician48%
- Silurian3%
- Late Cretaceous3%
- Paleocene7%
- Eocene10%
- Oligocene6%
- Miocene18%
- Pliocene5%
- Pleistocene3%
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
40 formations
- Holston Formation4
- Verulam Formation · Simcoe Group3
- Kope Formation3
- Decorah Shale Formation3
- Marianna Limestone Formation2
- Red Bluff Formation2
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The named rock units Micropora has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 16 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 27 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Micropora and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Micropora and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
1,794 taxa- Stictoporella24 sites
- Escharella14 sites
- Hallopora11 sites
- Prasopora11 sites
- Sowerbyella11 sites
- Hornera10 sites
- Isotelus10 sites
- Microporella ciliata10 sites
- Oncousoecia10 sites
- Reteporella10 sites
- Stictopora10 sites
- Helopora9 sites
- Pachydictya9 sites
- Rafinesquina9 sites
- Anazyga recurvirostra8 sites
- Celleporaria8 sites
- Disporella8 sites
- Escharoides8 sites
- Onychocella angulosa8 sites
- Puellina8 sites
- Amplexopora7 sites
- Cellepora7 sites
- Crisia7 sites
- Doleroides7 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 66 sites for Micropora, 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
37 references- A trilobite zonation of Middle Ordovician rocks, southwestern District of Mackenzie6
- The early Paleozoic Bryozoa of the Baltic Provinces6
- The Tertiary Cheilostomatous Polyzoa of New Zealand5
- A bryozoan and foraminifera association from the Miocene of Podbrezice, south Moravia (Czech Republic): an environmental history4
- Kalken paa Saltholm4
- North American early Tertiary Bryozoa4
- Les bryozoaires cheilostomes du Néogène bétique (SE Espagne)3
- Major Middle Ordovician reef tract in East Tennessee3
- Palaeozoic geology of the Lake Simcoe Area, Ontario3
- Zonation of the Middle and Upper Ordovician strata in northwestern Georgia3
- The fossil fauna of the Ordovician in the Cincinnati Region3
- Cryptostome bryozoan Stictoporella simplex (Pocta, 1894) from the Silurian of Bohemia2
Each of the 80 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. 25 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 content2
Picture of Micropora
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Alison M. Fortunato
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC0 Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Micropora”
- 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 itMicroporidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1848