Siphonia
Searched as Siphonia pyriformis tulipa. The Paleobiology Database treats Siphonia as the accepted name.
Siphonia is a genus of extinct hallirhoid demosponges of the Lower and Upper Cretaceous, from about 125 to 66 million years ago. They lived in the Western Tethys Ocean, in what is now Europe.

Apokryltaros · CC BY 2.5 · 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
- SiphoniinaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Lithistida
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Lithistida
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Lithistida
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Porifera
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Lithistida
Time the record covers
At least 19 million years on record.
The record covers at least 113.2 Mya to 93.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 121.4 Mya to 89.8 Mya.
2 occurrences of Siphonia on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. 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 occurrencesThese 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.
Siphonia and its relatives
Early CretaceousWhere Siphonia and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
667 taxa- Pachycothon giganteum8 sites
- Heterostinia obliqua7 sites
- Scytalia terebrata7 sites
- Seliscothon7 sites
- Verruculina seriatopora7 sites
- Aulosoma radiciformis6 sites
- Doryderma (Brochodora) roemeri6 sites
- Eustrobilus callosus6 sites
- Pachinion scriptum6 sites
- Phymatella bulbosa6 sites
- Verruculina tenuis6 sites
- Coscinostoma fragilis5 sites
- Jereica polystoma5 sites
- Propachastrella primaeva5 sites
- Seliscothon mantelli5 sites
- Astrocladia subramosa4 sites
- Aulaxinia ventricosa4 sites
- Callicylix eocenicus4 sites
- Callopegma acaule4 sites
- Chonella tenuis4 sites
- Coeloptychium deciminum4 sites
- Craterella auricula4 sites
- Homalodoriana plana4 sites
- Homalodoriana tuberosa4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 32 sites for Siphonia, 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
2 references- Les spongiaires Turoniens du synclinal d'Eygaliers (Baronnies, Drome) [Turonian sponges from the Eygaliers syncline (Baronnies, Drome)]1
- Contribution a l'etude des spongiaires siliceux du Cretace inferieur1
Each of the 2 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 content2
Picture of Siphonia
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Apokryltaros
- Licence
- CC BY 2.5
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- Chapel_Prints_CO
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Siphonia”
- 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 itSiphoniinae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Goldfuss 1826