Serpulidae
The Serpulidae are a family of sessile, tube-building annelid worms in the class Polychaeta. The members of this family differ from other sabellid tube worms in that they have a specialized operculum that blocks the entrance of their tubes when they withdraw into the tubes. In addition, serpulids secrete tubes of calcium carbonate. Serpulids are the most important biomineralizers among annelids. About 300 species in the family Serpulidae are known, all but one of which live in saline waters. The earliest serpulids are known from the Permian.

Nhobgood Nick Hobgood · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
- SabellidaPBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB
- Motility
- stationary, attached, epibiontPBDB
Time the record covers
At least 477 million years on record.
The record covers at least 477.1 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 486.4 Mya to 0 Mya.
2,390 occurrences of Serpulidae on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
2,390 occurrences- Ordovicianunder 1%
- Silurian2%
- Devonian4%
- Carboniferous4%
- Permian3%
- Early Triassicunder 1%
- Middle Triassic3%
- Late Triassic2%
- Early Jurassic7%
- Middle Jurassic6%
- Late Jurassic14%
- Early Cretaceous10%
- Late Cretaceous19%
- Paleocene4%
- Eocene6%
- Oligocene1%
- Miocene8%
- Plioceneunder 1%
- Pleistocene5%
- Holoceneunder 1%
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
487 formations
- Kap Leslie Formation66
- Chari Formation61
- Prairie Bluff Formation · Selma Group58
- Qingyan Formation51
- Qom Formation Formation50
- Corsicana Marl Formation44
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The named rock units Serpulidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 463 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 659 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Serpulidae and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Serpulidae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
2,094 taxa- Serpula111 sites
- Bryozoa56 sites
- Ammonoidea53 sites
- Spirorbis52 sites
- Astarte51 sites
- Camptonectes51 sites
- Entolium orbiculare48 sites
- Turritella47 sites
- Exogyra (Exogyra) costata46 sites
- Cliona44 sites
- Serpula intestinalis43 sites
- Anomia argentaria40 sites
- Isognomon40 sites
- Pinna40 sites
- Echinoidea38 sites
- Crassatella vadosa36 sites
- Crinoidea36 sites
- Taimyrothyris36 sites
- Buchia mosquensis34 sites
- Cubitostrea tecticosta33 sites
- Belemnitida32 sites
- Idonearca capax32 sites
- Pleuromya32 sites
- Turritella vertebroides32 sites
The Paleobiology Database records at least 1,689 sites for Serpulidae, and this reads 240 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
619 references- Unpublished data156
- Upper Cretaceous (Maestrichtian) Mollusca from the Haustator bilira Assemblage Zone in the East Gulf Coastal Plain82
- Palökologie benthischer Faunen aus dem Unter-Toarc SW-Europas73
- Unpublished data from Kachchh67
- Upper Cretaceous (Maestrichtian) larger invertebrate Fossils from the Haustator bilira Assemblage Zone in the west gulf Coastal Plain67
- Fossilvergesellschaftungen, Paläoökologie und paläosynökologische Entwicklung im Oberen Anisium (Mittlere Trias) von Qingyan, insbesondere Bangtoupo, Provinz Guizhou, Südwestchina51
- Sedimentary facies and depositional environments of the Oligocene–early Miocene marine Qom Formation, Central Iran Back-Arc Basin, Iran (northeastern margin of the Tethyan Seaway)50
- Genesis and environmental significance of Upper Cretaceous shell concentrations from the Cauvery Basin, southern India41
- Upper Cretaceous (Maestrichtian) larger invertebrates from the Haustator bilira Assemblage Zone in the Atlantic Coastal Plain with further data for the East Gulf41
- Molluscs at the K/Pg boundary in Argentina: Extinction and recovery patterns. unpublished Ph.D. thesis39
- Cretaceous stratigraphy of Raukumara Peninsula29
- Taxonomy and Paleoecology of the Bivalves from the Finis Shale (Pennsylvanian) of Texas28
Each of the 2,390 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. 607 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 Serpulidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Nhobgood Nick Hobgood
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Serpulidae 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.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Serpulidae”
- 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 itSabellida through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Rafinesque 1835