Pygope

Searched as Pygope aspasia. The Paleobiology Database treats Pygope as the accepted name.

Pygope is an extinct genus of brachiopods belonging to the family Pygopidae. These brachiopods lived in open sea from the Jurassic Period, Kimmeridgian age up to Cretaceous Period, Barremian age. Some of the species are characterised by a smaller or larger perforation through the entire shell in older specimens, while others just have a depression somewhere on the midline. Younger specimens of the perforated species develop a heart-shape and subsequently both extensions merge, thus encircling a central passage which is in fact entirely outside the shell.

Pygope

Francisco Ruiz Contreras · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
PygopinaePBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB, for Terebratulida
Life habit
low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Terebratulida
Motility
stationaryPBDB, for Terebratulida
Vision
blindPBDB, for Rhynchonellata
Environment
marinePBDB, for Lophophorata

Time the record covers

At most 16 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 199.5 Mya and 184.2 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Early Jurassic — about 1 of 1 occurrenceEarly Jurassic200–199 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences199–199 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences199–198 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences198–198 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences198–197 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences197–197 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences197–196 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences196–196 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences196–195 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences195–195 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences195–194 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences194–193 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences193–193 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences193–192 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences192–192 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences192–191 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences191–191 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences191–190 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences190–190 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences190–189 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences189–189 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences189–188 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences188–188 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences188–187 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences187–186 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences186–186 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences186–185 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences185–185 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences185–184 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences184–184 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences200 Mya183.7 Mya

1 occurrence of Pygope on record, most of them in the Early Jurassic. 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

1 occurrences

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

1 formation

Ain Ouarka — 32.71°N, 0.16°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Pygope has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Pygope and its relatives

Early Jurassic

Where Pygope and its relatives were recorded in the Early Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

158 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 77 sites for Pygope, 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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Pygope

Credit
Francisco Ruiz Contreras
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

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

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 itPygopinae through timeFormations of the Early JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Link 1830