Sphenotrochus
Sphenotrochus is a genus of stony corals belonging to the family Turbinoliidae, and was first described in 1948 by Henri Milne-Edwards and Jules Haime.

Cairns S, Kitahara M (2012) · CC BY 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
- TurbinoliidaePBDB
- Diet
- microcarnivorePBDB, for Turbinoliidae
- Life habit
- solitaryPBDB, for Turbinoliidae
- Motility
- stationaryPBDB, for Turbinoliidae
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Anthozoa
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Scleractinia
Time the record covers
At least 58 million years on record.
The record covers at least 61.66 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 66 Mya to 2.58 Mya.
44 occurrences of Sphenotrochus on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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
44 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.
Found in
11 formations
- Claiborne Sand Formation · Claiborne Group2
- Faluns de Bois-Gouët Formation2
- Sables a Nummulites variolarius Formation1
- Navidad Formation1
- Kievskaya Formation1
- Bruderndorf Formation1
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The named rock units Sphenotrochus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 31 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Sphenotrochus and its relatives
MioceneWhere Sphenotrochus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
711 taxa- Turritella5 sites
- Lunulites4 sites
- Amalda obsoleta3 sites
- Astrangia manthelanensis3 sites
- Balanophyllia3 sites
- Balanophyllia varians3 sites
- Culicia parasita3 sites
- Dendrophyllia amica3 sites
- Ditrupa3 sites
- Eulima3 sites
- Flabellum3 sites
- Glycymeris3 sites
- Limacina valvatina3 sites
- Peponocyathus duncani3 sites
- Syrnola3 sites
- Tectonatica3 sites
- Vaginella3 sites
- Abra (Abra)2 sites
- Acamptogenotia2 sites
- Acirsa (Hemiacirsa)2 sites
- Acteon (Acteon)2 sites
- Aequipecten2 sites
- Amyclina2 sites
- Anachis (Costoanachis)2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Sphenotrochus, 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
21 references- Les faunes de coraux (Anthozoaires Scléractiniaires) de la façade atlantique française au Chattien et au Miocène6
- Polypiers Eocenes de la Loire-inferieure5
- Les Scleractiniaires du Pliocene de Normandie [Scleractinia from the Pliocene of Normandy]4
- Les Turbinolia et Sphenotrochus (Scleractiniaires) du Lutetien de Grignon (Yvelines); anatomie, developpement ontogenique et microstructure squelettique [Turbinolia and Sphenotrochus (Scleractinia) from the Lutetian of Grignon (Yvelines); anatomy, ontogenetic development and skeletal microstructure]4
- Les faunes de Scleractiniaires dans les faluns du Miocene moyen d'Atlantique-Est (bassins de la Loire et d'Aquitaine): paleobiogeographie et evolution climatique [The faunas of Scleractinian corals in the faluns of the Eastern Atlantic Middle Miocene (Loire and Aquitaine Basins): paleobiogeography and climatic evolution]2
- A generic revision and phylogenetic analysis of the Turbinoliidae2
- Die Fauna des marinen Miozäns von Kevelaer (Niederrhein). Band 1 Foraminiferen, Anthozoen.2
- Neogene paleontology in the northern Dominican Republic, 5. The suborders Caryophylliina and Dendrophylliina (Anthozoa, Scleractinia)2
- Koralen van het Nederlandsche Tertiair [Corals from the Tertiary of the Netherlands]2
- Report on a collection of fossils from the Lakes Entrance shaft, Gippsland, Victoria2
- Das Danien der äusseren Klippenzone bei Wien [Danian of the outer Klippen Belt near Vienna]2
- The Eocene and lower Oligocene coral faunas of the United States with descriptions of a few doubtfully Cretaceous species2
Each of the 44 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. 9 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 Sphenotrochus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Cairns S, Kitahara M (2012)
- Licence
- CC BY 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Sphenotrochus 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 itTurbinoliidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Milne-Edwards and Haime 1848