Spyroceras

via iDigBio · CC0 · 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
- SpyroceratidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda
Time the record covers
At least 93 million years on record.
The record covers at least 458.2 Mya to 365.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 471.3 Mya to 358.86 Mya.
184 occurrences of Spyroceras on record, most of them in the Devonian. 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
184 occurrences- Ordovician46%
- Silurian7%
- Devonian47%
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
62 formations
- Moscow Formation · Hamilton Group33
- Ludlowville Formation · Hamilton Group13
- Mahantango Formation · Hamilton Group8
- Whitby Formation · Nottawasaga Group5
- Kess-Kess Formation5
- Bønsnes Formation5
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Spyroceras has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 38 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 24 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Spyroceras and its relatives
DevonianWhere Spyroceras and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.
Found in the same rock
1,431 taxa- Endoceras27 sites
- Crinoidea24 sites
- Diestoceras24 sites
- Actinoceras23 sites
- Eldredgeops rana17 sites
- Michelinoceras17 sites
- Ephippiorthoceras16 sites
- Mucrospirifer mucronatus16 sites
- Palaeoneilo14 sites
- Allumettoceras13 sites
- Beloitoceras13 sites
- Camarotoechia12 sites
- Greenops boothi12 sites
- Kionoceras12 sites
- Platyceras12 sites
- Bryozoa11 sites
- Charactoceras11 sites
- Favosites11 sites
- Geisonoceras11 sites
- Lambeoceras11 sites
- Lingula11 sites
- Orthoceras11 sites
- Tropidoleptus carinatus11 sites
- Westonoceras11 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 128 sites for Spyroceras, 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
56 references- The Dynamics of Rapid, Asynchronous Biotic Turnover in the Middle Devonian Appalachian Basin of New York27
- Ordovician cephalopod fauna of Baffin Island18
- Biostratigraphy of the Middle and Late Ordovician cephalopods of the Upper Mississippi Valley area15
- Revision of the Pragian Rutoceratoidea Hyatt, 1884 (Nautiloidea, Oncocerida) from the Prague Basin8
- Palaeozoic geology of the Lake Simcoe Area, Ontario8
- Stratigraphy and Paleontology of the Mahantango Formation in south-central Pennsylvania8
- The Upper Ordovician Cephalopods of the Oslo Area8
- Nautiloids before and during the ammonoid origin in a Siluro–Devonian section of the Tafilalt (Morocco)6
- The Baltic nautiloids Cyrtoceras ellipticum Lossen 1860, C. priscum Eichwald 1861, and Orthoceras damesi Krause 18775
- Stratigraphy and Paleontology of the Jaycox Shale Member, Hamilton Group of the Finger Lakes Region of New York State5
- Cornwallis and Little Cornwallis Islands, District of Franklin, Northwest Territories5
- Die Cephalopoden-Fauna der Lyckholm-Stufe des Ostbaltikums5
Each of the 184 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. 44 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 Spyroceras
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC0 Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itSpyroceratidae through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hyatt 1884