Spirifer
Searched as Spirifer (Neospirifer) musakheylensis humilis. The Paleobiology Database treats Spirifer as the accepted name.
Spirifer is a genus of marine brachiopods belonging to the order Spiriferida and family Spiriferidae. Species belonging to the genus lived in the Carboniferous.

Dwergenpaartje · 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
- SpiriferinaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Spiriferida
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Spiriferida
- Motility
- stationaryPBDB, for Spiriferida
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Rhynchonellata
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Lophophorata
Time the record covers
At most 8 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 259.857 Mya and 251.902 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
7 occurrences of Spirifer 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
7 occurrences- Permian100%
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
1 formation
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Spirifer has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Spirifer and its relatives
PermianWhere Spirifer and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.
Found in the same rock
1,418 taxa- Camarotoechia77 sites
- Fenestella59 sites
- Chonetes57 sites
- Schuchertella46 sites
- Cleiothyridina42 sites
- Syringothyris41 sites
- Dielasma38 sites
- Composita37 sites
- Crinoidea37 sites
- Platycrinites36 sites
- Platyceras32 sites
- Fistulipora30 sites
- Cyrtospirifer29 sites
- Eumetria29 sites
- Cystodictya28 sites
- Girtyella28 sites
- Punctospirifer27 sites
- Composita trinuclea26 sites
- Productella26 sites
- Rhipidomella26 sites
- Syringopora26 sites
- Polypora25 sites
- Torynifer25 sites
- Brachythyris24 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 804 sites for Spirifer, 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
1 referenceEach of the 7 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 Spirifer
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Dwergenpaartje
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- UIPaleoRepository
- 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, “Spirifer”
- 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 itSpiriferinae through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Sowerby 1818)