Rotaia

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
- TetracameridaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Rhynchonellida
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Rhynchonellida
- Motility
- stationaryPBDB, for Rhynchonellida
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Rhynchonellata
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Lophophorata
Time the record covers
At least 5.2 million years on record.
The record covers at least 351.9 Mya to 346.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 358.86 Mya to 330.3 Mya.
6 occurrences of Rotaia on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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- Carboniferous100%
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
3 formations
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The named rock units Rotaia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Rotaia and its relatives
CarboniferousWhere Rotaia and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.
Found in the same rock
107 taxa- Athyris bradyensis3 sites
- Brachythyris chouteauensis3 sites
- Productina sampsoni3 sites
- Reticularia cooperensis3 sites
- Rugosochonetes burlingtonensis3 sites
- Schizophoria3 sites
- Spirifer3 sites
- Amesopleura texana2 sites
- Avonia honeycreekensis2 sites
- Beecheria chouteauensis2 sites
- Brachythyris2 sites
- Cleiothyridina2 sites
- Cleiothyridina tenuilineata2 sites
- Coledium2 sites
- Coledium undulatum2 sites
- Cranaena hannibalensis2 sites
- Cranaena texana2 sites
- Crassumbo inornatus2 sites
- Crurithyris parva2 sites
- Cyphotalosia masonensis2 sites
- Cyrtina burlingtonensis2 sites
- Delepinea2 sites
- Echinoconchus2 sites
- Ectochoristites inflatus2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Rotaia, 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
3 references- Early Carboniferous brachiopod zones of eastern Australia3
- Mississippian brachiopods from the Chappel Limestone of central Texas2
- New genera and species of Early Mississippian brachiopods from the Burlington Limestone1
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. 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 Rotaia
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Rotaia 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 itTetracameridae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.