Vaginoceras

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
- EndoceratidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Endocerida
- Life habit
- nektobenthicPBDB, for Endocerida
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Endocerida
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Cephalopoda
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Cephalopoda
Time the record covers
At least 14 million years on record.
The record covers at least 471.3 Mya to 457.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 486.85 Mya to 449.5 Mya.
49 occurrences of Vaginoceras on record, most of them in the Ordovician. 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
49 occurrences- Ordovician100%
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
25 formations
- Lourdes Formation · Long Point Group7
- Guniutan Formation6
- Dawan Formation5
- Baota Formation5
- Chedao Formation2
- Valcour Formation · Chazyan Group2
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The named rock units Vaginoceras has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. One further formation holds fewer occurrences and is not listed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Vaginoceras and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Vaginoceras and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
397 taxa- Michelinoceras17 sites
- Illaenus16 sites
- Dideroceras12 sites
- Nileus9 sites
- Orthoceras8 sites
- Sinoceras8 sites
- Ecculiomphalus7 sites
- Chisiloceras6 sites
- Endoceras6 sites
- Ptychopyge6 sites
- Richardsonoceras6 sites
- Drepanodus5 sites
- Isoteloides5 sites
- Orthis5 sites
- Protocycloceras5 sites
- Remopleurides5 sites
- Yangtzeella5 sites
- Asaphus4 sites
- Baltoniodus4 sites
- Cyclopyge4 sites
- Drepanoistodus4 sites
- Geragnostus4 sites
- Gonioceras minor4 sites
- Lituites4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 49 sites for Vaginoceras, 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
23 references- Nautiloids of the Lourdes Formation (Middle Ordovician), Port au Port Peninsula, western Newfoundland7
- Regional stratigraphic data of central South China5
- Biostratigraphy of the Yangtze Gorge Area. Part (2) Early Paleozoic Era4
- Cephalopoda of the Beekmantown and Chazy formations of the Champlain Basin4
- Middle and Upper Ordovician nautiloid cephalopods of the Cincinnati Arch region of Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio3
- Summary of regional geology of Hu''nan Province, China3
- Stratigraphic Summary of the Southwestern Region of China3
- Stratigraphic table of northwestern region of China: XinJiang Province part2
- Regional stratigraphic table of the southwestern region of China, Sichuan part2
- Regional stratigraphic table of Eastern China, AnHui Province2
- The Palaeozoic Outlier of Lake Timiskaming, Ontario and Quebec2
- Ordovician cephalopods from the Maggol Formation of Korea1
Each of the 49 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. 11 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 Vaginoceras
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Vaginoceras was found in Sketchfab.
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 itEndoceratidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hyatt 1884