Orbulina

Unknown author Unknown author · Public Domain · via Wikidata/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
- GlobigerinidaePBDB
- Diet
- omnivorePBDB, for Foraminifera
- Life habit
- semi-infaunalPBDB, for Foraminifera
- Motility
- stationaryPBDB, for Foraminifera
Time the record covers
At least 83 million years on record.
The record covers at least 83.6 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 0 Mya.
3,445 occurrences of Orbulina on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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
3,445 occurrences- Late Cretaceousunder 1%
- Paleoceneunder 1%
- Eoceneunder 1%
- Oligoceneunder 1%
- Miocene31%
- Pliocene25%
- Pleistocene43%
- Holoceneunder 1%
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
- Yorktown Formation · Chesapeake Group2
- Formación Coquimbo Formation2
- Lithothamnion limestone Formation2
- Clacare di Mendicino Formation1
- Cholan Formation1
- Cessole Formation1
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The named rock units Orbulina has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3,420 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Orbulina and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Orbulina and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
1,089 taxa- Globigerina bulloides139 sites
- Globigerinoides ruber135 sites
- Globorotalia (Hirsutella) scitula108 sites
- Neogloboquadrina acostaensis101 sites
- Globorotalia (Menardella) limbata94 sites
- Globorotalia (Globorotalia) tumida90 sites
- Dentoglobigerina altispira85 sites
- Neogloboquadrina dutertrei84 sites
- Trilobatus sacculifer82 sites
- Globigerinella siphonifera81 sites
- Globigerinoides81 sites
- Globigerinoides obliquus78 sites
- Globoconella inflata77 sites
- Sphaeroidinellopsis seminulina77 sites
- Globigerinoides extremus75 sites
- Pulleniatina obliquiloculata73 sites
- Globorotalia (Menardella) menardii71 sites
- Neogloboquadrina humerosa71 sites
- Dentoglobigerina venezuelana69 sites
- Globorotalia (Hirsutella) margaritae68 sites
- Globorotalia plesiotumida67 sites
- Globigerinoides conglobatus66 sites
- Globoturborotalita apertura64 sites
- Sphaeroidinellopsis kochi64 sites
The Paleobiology Database records at least 1,784 sites for Orbulina, and this reads 240 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
144 references- Site U1389168
- Site U1476159
- Site U1387142
- Site U1474125
- Site U1338123
- Palaeobathymetric gradients across Timor during 5.7–3.3 Ma and implications for collision uplift122
- Site U1479114
- Site U1386111
- Site U1391108
- Site U147187
- Site U144786
- Site U146783
Each of the 3,445 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. 132 further references are not listed. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content3

Picture of Orbulina
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Unknown author Unknown author
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Orbulina universa · l-mw:F14
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
- Commercial use
- the licence does not allow it
Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itGlobigerinidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. d'Orbigny 1839