Sphenophyllum

Sphenophyllum is a genus in the order Sphenophyllales. It has been placed in the family Sphenophyllaceae.

Sphenophyllum

Woudloper · Public Domain · 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
SphenophyllalesPBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta

Time the record covers

At least 111 million years on record.

The record covers at least 365.2 Mya to 254.14 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 382.31 Mya to 251.902 Mya.

Devonian — about 3 of 560 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 184 of 560 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 373 of 560 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 560 occurrences385–380 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences380–376 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences376–371 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences371–367 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences367–362 Mya — about 1 occurrence362–358 Mya — about 3 occurrences358–353 Mya — about 9 occurrences353–349 Mya — about 8 occurrences349–344 Mya — about 7 occurrences344–340 Mya — about 7 occurrences340–335 Mya — about 9 occurrences335–331 Mya — about 7 occurrences331–326 Mya — about 8 occurrences326–322 Mya — about 10 occurrences322–317 Mya — about 20 occurrences317–313 Mya — about 18 occurrences313–308 Mya — about 30 occurrences308–304 Mya — about 23 occurrences304–299 Mya — about 25 occurrences299–295 Mya — about 36 occurrences295–290 Mya — about 37 occurrences290–285 Mya — about 40 occurrences285–281 Mya — about 35 occurrences281–276 Mya — about 29 occurrences276–272 Mya — about 37 occurrences272–267 Mya — about 43 occurrences267–263 Mya — about 38 occurrences263–258 Mya — about 34 occurrences258–254 Mya — about 35 occurrences254–249 Mya — about 8 occurrences365.2 Mya254.14 Mya385 Mya249 Mya

560 occurrences of Sphenophyllum on record, most of them in the Permian. 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

560 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

126 formations

Shanxi — 39.90°N, 111.80°EShanxi — 34.30°N, 116.90°EShanxi — 37.80°N, 112.20°EShanxi — 39.60°N, 111.00°EShanxi — 40.00°N, 116.20°EShanxi — 38.00°N, 114.00°EShanxi — 41.80°N, 126.50°EShanxi — 35.20°N, 109.90°EShanxi — 34.20°N, 113.50°EShanxi — 38.80°N, 105.60°EShanxi — 39.40°N, 121.80°EShanxi — 38.80°N, 99.60°EShanxi — 38.50°N, 102.20°EShanxi — 38.20°N, 106.40°EShanxi — 36.80°N, 118.10°EShanxi — 39.40°N, 111.00°EShanxi — 35.10°N, 117.20°EShanxi — 36.37°N, 113.28°ETaiyuan — 40.00°N, 118.00°ETaiyuan — 37.50°N, 105.20°ETaiyuan — 41.80°N, 126.50°ETaiyuan — 35.50°N, 110.40°ETaiyuan — 37.50°N, 114.60°ETaiyuan — 40.00°N, 116.20°ETaiyuan — 39.70°N, 106.80°ETaiyuan — 38.80°N, 99.60°ETaiyuan — 41.60°N, 119.70°ETaiyuan — 38.80°N, 105.60°ETaiyuan — 36.00°N, 106.30°ETaiyuan — 36.80°N, 118.10°ETaiyuan — 39.40°N, 111.00°EPottsville — 33.82°N, 87.42°WPottsville — 33.00°N, 87.00°WCarbondale — 38.18°N, 87.33°WCarbondale — 40.00°N, 90.00°WGoldlauterer — 50.80°N, 10.60°ELongtan — 30.80°N, 118.70°ELongtan — 30.80°N, 119.40°ELongtan — 30.20°N, 114.90°ELongtan — 27.70°N, 111.70°ELongtan — 27.00°N, 113.30°ETongzhiyan — 25.10°N, 113.60°ETongzhiyan — 24.20°N, 115.80°ETongzhiyan — 22.20°N, 112.90°ETongzhiyan — 25.20°N, 117.10°ETongzhiyan — 25.80°N, 116.70°EMinto — 46.08°N, 66.08°WPetersburg — 38.10°N, 87.18°WWinfield — 39.82°N, 97.05°WWinfield — 36.28°N, 97.28°WManebacher — 50.80°N, 10.60°ERio do Rasto — 27.00°S, 50.00°WRio do Rasto — 25.50°S, 51.00°WRio do Rasto — 25.90°S, 50.90°WBarakar — 24.60°N, 87.50°EBarakar — 23.90°N, 87.00°EBarakar — 25.05°N, 87.36°EKoshelevskaya Suite — 57.40°N, 57.70°EKoshelevskaya Suite — 57.00°N, 58.20°EWankie Sandstone — 18.40°S, 26.40°EHeilgenwalder Schichten — 49.28°N, 6.80°EHermit Shale — 36.07°N, 112.13°WHermit Shale — 36.00°N, 112.00°WBelle Plains — 30.27°N, 97.74°WBelle Plains — 33.63°N, 98.95°WBelle Plains — 32.50°N, 99.20°WVryheid — 26.50°S, 28.00°EVryheid — 25.50°S, 28.50°EDrywood — 38.00°N, 93.00°WWellington — 38.36°N, 98.76°WWellington — 38.68°N, 97.30°WWellington — 38.68°N, 97.23°WBrazil — 39.13°N, 87.02°WBert — 46.30°N, 3.70°EGres de Bucaco — 40.40°N, 8.40°W

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The named rock units Sphenophyllum has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 102 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 231 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Sphenophyllum and its relatives

Permian

Where Sphenophyllum and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.

Found in the same rock

574 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 318 sites for Sphenophyllum, 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

138 references

Each of the 560 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. 126 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 Sphenophyllum

Credit
Woudloper
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Sphenophyllum 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

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 itSphenophyllales through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. König 1825