Oulophyllia
Oulophyllia is a genus of stony corals in the family Merulinidae. Members of this genus are native to the tropical western and central Indo-Pacific region.

Júlio Reis · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
- MerulinidaePBDB
- Diet
- microcarnivore, photosymbioticPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Life habit
- intermediate-level epifaunal, colonial, clonalPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Anthozoa
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Scleractinia
Time the record covers
At least 37 million years on record.
The record covers at least 37.71 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 48.07 Mya to 0 Mya.
31 occurrences of Oulophyllia 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
31 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
13 formations
- Castelgomberto Formation4
- Ghasr Ghand Formation2
- Merizo Formation2
- Gashr Ghand Formation1
- Darkhunish Formation1
- Riukiu Limestone Formation1
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Oulophyllia 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.
Oulophyllia and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Oulophyllia and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
234 taxa- Porites9 sites
- Acropora7 sites
- Favia7 sites
- Montipora7 sites
- Acanthastrea echinata6 sites
- Galaxea fascicularis6 sites
- Goniopora6 sites
- Montastraea6 sites
- Cyphastrea5 sites
- Dipsastraea pallida5 sites
- Leptoria phrygia5 sites
- Acanthastrea4 sites
- Astrea curta4 sites
- Astreopora4 sites
- Cyphastrea chalcidicum4 sites
- Cyphastrea microphthalma4 sites
- Goniastrea retiformis4 sites
- Leptoseris4 sites
- Pocillopora damicornis4 sites
- Seriatopora4 sites
- Stylophora4 sites
- Symphyllia recta4 sites
- Acropora muricata3 sites
- Alveopora3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Oulophyllia, 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
18 references- Carbonate deposition in accretionary prism settings: Early Miocene coral limestones and corals of the Makran Mountain Range in southern Iran4
- Paläontologische Studien über die älteren Tertiärschichten der Alpen, 1: Die fossilen Anthozoen der Schichten von Castelgomberto [Paleontological studies about the older Tertiary beds in the Alps, 1: The fossil Anthozoa from the Castelcomberto Formation]4
- Variations in Pleistocene coral assemblages in space and time in southern and northern central Ryukyu Islands, Japan3
- Les Madreporaires fossiles de Mare [The fossil corals from Mare]3
- Evidence of high sea level during isotope stage 5c in Queensland, Australia2
- Community structure and petrography of an emergent Holocene reef limestone on Guam2
- Geological and geographical distribution of reef-corals in Japan2
- High coral reef connectivity across the Indian Ocean is revealed 6–7 Ma ago by a turbid-water scleractinian assemblage from Tanzania (Eastern Africa)1
- Pliocene corals from the Togopi Formation of the Dent Peninsula, Sabah, northeastern Borneo, Malaysia1
- Recurrent patterns of coral community and sediment facies development through successive phases of Holocene inner-shelf reef growth and decline1
- Interstadial coral reef terraces and relative sea-level changes during marine oxygen isotope stages 3-4, Kikai Island, central Ryukyus, Japan1
- Arun Field Indonesia, North Sumatra Basin, Sumatra1
Each of the 31 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. 6 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 Oulophyllia
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Júlio Reis
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Oulophyllia 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Oulophyllia”
- 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 itMerulinidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Milne-Edwards and Haime 1848