Rhynchospirifer

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
- RhynchospiriferinaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Ambocoelioidea
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Ambocoelioidea
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Ambocoelioidea
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Rhynchonellata
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Lophophorata
Time the record covers
At most 12 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 393.47 Mya and 382.31 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
6 occurrences of Rhynchospirifer on record, most of them in the Devonian. 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
6 occurrences- Devonian100%
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
5 formations
- Yingtang Formation1
- Aouinet Ouenine II Formation1
- Bi'r al Qasr Formation1
- Kowala Formation · Set A Group1
- Dziewki Formation1
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The named rock units Rhynchospirifer has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Rhynchospirifer and its relatives
DevonianWhere Rhynchospirifer and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.
Found in the same rock
66 taxa- Amphipora ramosa2 sites
- Bivalvia2 sites
- Newberria2 sites
- Acanthophyllum1 site
- Actinostroma1 site
- Actinostroma expansum1 site
- Alveolites1 site
- Ambothyris1 site
- Athyris1 site
- Aulopora1 site
- Bensbergia arculata1 site
- Bornhardtina1 site
- Bryozoa1 site
- Buechelia1 site
- Calceola sandalina acuminata1 site
- Calceola sandalina intermedia1 site
- Calceola sandalina nanningensis1 site
- Caliapora1 site
- Conocardium1 site
- Crassialveolites1 site
- Crurithyris1 site
- Cupularostrum1 site
- Cyrtodechenella declinans1 site
- Cystiphylloides1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Rhynchospirifer, 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
4 references- Devonian and Lower Carboniferous brachiopods and bivalves from western Libya2
- Brachiopod assemblages in the Devonian Kowala Formation of the Holy Cross Mountains2
- Devonian sections in Guangxi from which pelecypods were collected1
- Middle Devonian brachiopods from Celechovice, Moravia1
Each of the 6 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1

Picture of Rhynchospirifer
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Rhynchospirifer 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itRhynchospiriferinae through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.