Sphaera

Sphaera

via iDigBio · CC BY-NC-ND · 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
FimbriinaePBDB
Diet
chemosymbioticPBDB, for Lucinidae
Life habit
deep infaunalPBDB, for Lucinidae
Motility
facultatively mobilePBDB, for Lucinidae
Vision
blindPBDB, for Bivalvia

Time the record covers

At least 140 million years on record.

The record covers at least 241.464 Mya to 100.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 247 Mya to 93.9 Mya.

Early Triassic — about 0 of 51 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 2 of 51 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 51 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 51 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 2 of 51 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 5 of 51 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 33 of 51 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 9 of 51 occurrences250–245 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences245–239 Mya — about 1 occurrence170–165 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences165–160 Mya — about 2 occurrences160–155 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences155–149 Mya — about 4 occurrences149–144 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences144–139 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences139–133 Mya — about 1 occurrence133–128 Mya — about 4 occurrences128–123 Mya — about 4 occurrences123–117 Mya — about 11 occurrences117–112 Mya — about 5 occurrences112–107 Mya — about 4 occurrences107–101 Mya — about 3 occurrences101–96 Mya — about 6 occurrences96–91 Mya — about 3 occurrences241.464 Mya100.5 Mya250 Mya91 Mya

51 occurrences of Sphaera 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

51 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

16 formations

Atherfield Clay — 50.60°N, 1.32°WAtherfield Clay — 51.23°N, 0.58°WAtherfield Clay — 50.61°N, 1.36°WRaha — 28.65°N, 33.24°EShuqra — 14.27°N, 48.57°EShuqra — 14.32°N, 48.45°EFahdene — 35.57°N, 8.09°EFerruginous Sands — 50.60°N, 1.32°WHythe — 51.08°N, 1.18°ESandgate — 51.35°N, 2.08°WBarranquín — 8.96°N, 63.55°WCumburindio — 18.52°N, 100.95°WLignites de Traiguera — 40.52°N, 0.30°WBranderfleck — 47.67°N, 12.17°ESan Juan Raya — 18.32°N, 97.63°WKotick Point — 64.17°S, 57.75°WAmbarimaninga — 16.50°S, 46.00°EGalala — 29.67°N, 34.50°EKongressfjellet — 78.55°N, 21.08°E

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The named rock units Sphaera has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 23 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Sphaera and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Sphaera and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

718 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 45 sites for Sphaera, 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

28 references

Each of the 51 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. 16 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 content2

Picture of Sphaera

Source
iDigBio
Credit
via iDigBio
Licence
CC BY-NC-ND
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
AVZ
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.

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itFimbriinae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Sowerby 1822