Phragmorthis

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
- PhragmorthidaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Orthida
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Orthida
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Orthida
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Rhynchonellata
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Lophophorata
Time the record covers
At least 19 million years on record.
The record covers at least 469.4 Mya to 449.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 471.3 Mya to 443.1 Mya.
51 occurrences of Phragmorthis 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
51 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
19 formations
- Kangaroo Creek Formation10
- Anderken Formation7
- Valhallfonna Formation6
- Dashaba Formation4
- Telsitna Formation3
- San Juan Formation2
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The named rock units Phragmorthis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Phragmorthis and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Phragmorthis and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
470 taxa- Ptychopleurella uniplicata13 sites
- Skenidioides multifarius12 sites
- Sulevorthis parvicrassicostatus11 sites
- Skenidioides8 sites
- Amblysiphonella grossa7 sites
- Paralenorthis7 sites
- Ptychopleurella mediocostata7 sites
- Scaphorthis7 sites
- Anoptambonites5 sites
- Diochthofera conspicua5 sites
- Glyptorthis5 sites
- Illaenus5 sites
- Leptellina5 sites
- Orthambonites5 sites
- Ptychoglyptus virginiensis5 sites
- Remopleurides5 sites
- Salopina horseshoensis5 sites
- Taphrorthis peculiaris5 sites
- Ampyx4 sites
- Bimuria buttsi4 sites
- Brachiopoda4 sites
- Cystothalamiella ducta4 sites
- Dicoelosia4 sites
- Dicoelosia jonesridgensis4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 44 sites for Phragmorthis, 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- Middle and Late Ordovician brachiopods from the eastern Klamath Mountains, northern California14
- Upper Ordovician brachiopods from the Anderken Formation, Kazakhstan: their ecology and systematics7
- Taxonomy and biostratigraphy of Ordovician brachiopods from northeastern Ny Friesland, Spitsbergen6
- The Barr and lower Ardmillan series (Caradoc) of the Girvan District, south-west Ayrshire, with descriptions of the Brachiopoda5
- Brachiopods from the Dashaba Formation (Middle Ordovician) of Sichuan Province, south-west China4
- Late Ordovician brachiopods from west-central Alaska: systematics, ecology and palaeobiogeography3
- Chazyan and related brachiopods3
- Late Ordovician brachiopods from the Dulankara formation of the Chu-ili range, Kazakhstan: their systematics, palaeoecology and palaeobiogeography2
- El genero Reinversella (Brachiopoda) en el Ordovicico temprano de la Precordillera Argentina y su significado paleobiogeografico2
- Fossils from the Ordovician bioherm at Meiklejohn Peak, Nevada2
- Emergence of the Saucrorthis Fauna in the Middle Ordovician of northern Iran1
- On an exposure of the Ordovician superstes Mudstones at Colmonell, Girvan District, Strathclyde1
Each of the 51 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 Phragmorthis
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itPhragmorthidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cooper 1956