Pachydictya

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
- RhinidictyidaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Stenolaemata
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Bryozoa
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Stenolaemata
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Stenolaemata
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Lophophorata
Time the record covers
At least 27 million years on record.
The record covers at least 458.2 Mya to 430.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 486.85 Mya to 422.7 Mya.
138 occurrences of Pachydictya 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
138 occurrences- Ordovician91%
- Silurian9%
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
48 formations
- Wardell Formation14
- Benbolt Formation6
- Verulam Formation · Simcoe Group5
- Denley Limestone Formation · Lower Trenton Group5
- Valcour Formation5
- Cliffield Formation4
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The named rock units Pachydictya has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 24 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 39 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Pachydictya and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Pachydictya and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
1,413 taxa- Batostoma38 sites
- Rafinesquina33 sites
- Hallopora29 sites
- Leperditia26 sites
- Graptodictya22 sites
- Stictopora22 sites
- Strophomena22 sites
- Girvanella20 sites
- Prasopora20 sites
- Hesperorthis19 sites
- Platystrophia19 sites
- Rhynchotrema19 sites
- Receptaculites18 sites
- Sowerbyella18 sites
- Eridotrypa17 sites
- Dystactospongia16 sites
- Homotrypa16 sites
- Nicholsonella16 sites
- Dekayia15 sites
- Hormotoma15 sites
- Isotelus15 sites
- Lophospira15 sites
- Prismostylus fibratum15 sites
- Strophomena incurvata15 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 128 sites for Pachydictya, 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
40 references- Stratigraphy of the Lower Middle Ordovician of Tazewell County, Virginia24
- Zonation of the Middle and Upper Ordovician strata in northwestern Georgia18
- The early Paleozoic Bryozoa of the Baltic Provinces12
- Ordovician Cryptostome Bryozoa, Standard Chazyan Series, New York and Vermont9
- Geology of the Bristol and Wallace quadrangles, Virginia7
- Palaeozoic geology of the Lake Simcoe Area, Ontario7
- Fossil Communities of the Middle Trenton Group (Ordovician) of New York State6
- Fossil communities of the lower Trenton Group (Middle Ordovician) of central and northwestern New York State5
- Pre-Chattanooga stratigraphy in Central Tennessee5
- A trilobite zonation of Middle Ordovician rocks, southwestern District of Mackenzie4
- Oporniih razrez reki Moiero silura Sibirskoi platformih -The Silurian composit section of the Moiero River (Sibirian platform)3
- The Lower Palaeozoic fossils of the Northern Shan States, Burma. With a section of Ordovician cystidea by F. A. Bather [q.v.]3
Each of the 138 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. 28 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 Pachydictya
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Pachydictya 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 itRhinidictyidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ulrich 1882