Orthorhynchula

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
- OrthorhynchulidaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Rhynchonellida
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Rhynchonellida
- Motility
- stationaryPBDB, for Rhynchonellida
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Rhynchonellata
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Lophophorata
Time the record covers
At least 800 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 451 Mya to 450.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 458.2 Mya to 443.1 Mya.
48 occurrences of Orthorhynchula 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
48 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
11 formations
- Lexington Limestone Formation15
- Leipers Formation6
- Catheys Formation4
- Martinsburg Formation3
- Fairview Formation1
- Bellevue Formation1
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The named rock units Orthorhynchula has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 13 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Orthorhynchula and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Orthorhynchula and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
274 taxa- Platystrophia24 sites
- Zygospira23 sites
- Hebertella18 sites
- Hallopora16 sites
- Escharopora15 sites
- Rafinesquina14 sites
- Ambonychia13 sites
- Constellaria13 sites
- Homotrypa13 sites
- Zygospira modesta13 sites
- Hebertella sinuata12 sites
- Heterotrypa12 sites
- Anazyga recurvirostra11 sites
- Prismostylus fibratum11 sites
- Trepostomida11 sites
- Atactoporella10 sites
- Eridotrypa10 sites
- Flexicalymene10 sites
- Hebertella frankfortensis10 sites
- Heterotrypa frondosa10 sites
- Rafinesquina alternata10 sites
- Augustoceras vallandighami9 sites
- Paupospira bowdeni9 sites
- Platystrophia colbiensis9 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 48 sites for Orthorhynchula, 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
13 references- Ecological restructuring after extinction: the Late Ordovician (Mohawkian) of the eastern United States11
- Zonation of the Middle and Upper Ordovician strata in northwestern Georgia11
- Pre-Chattanooga stratigraphy in Central Tennessee7
- Biofacies Replacement in a Sequence Stratigraphic Framework: Middle and Upper Ordovician of the Nashville Dome, Tennessee, USA5
- Ecosystem structure and stability: middle Upper Ordovician of central Kentucky, USA3
- Middle and Late Ordovician plectambonitacean, rhynchonellacean, syntrophiacean, trimerellacean, and atrypacean brachiopods: descriptions and illustrations of 14 species of Ordovician brachiopods2
- Upper Ordovician Ecology of the Central Appalachians2
- The fossil fauna of the Ordovician in the Cincinnati Region2
- Community gradients in the Martinsburg Fm. (Ord.) southwestern Virginia1
- Lithostratigraphy and depositional environments of the Lexington Limestone (Ordovician) of central Kentucky1
- Quantitative paleoecologic analysis of fossil communities in the Richmond Group1
- The paleontology and stratigraphy of the upper Martinsburg formation of Massanutten Mountain, Virginia1
Each of the 48 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. 1 further reference is 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 Orthorhynchula
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Orthorhynchula was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
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 itOrthorhynchulidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hall and Clarke 1893