Virgoceras

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
- GeisonoceratidaePBDB
- 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 900 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 458.2 Mya to 457.3 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 469.4 Mya to 449.5 Mya.
3 occurrences of Virgoceras 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
3 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
3 formations
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The named rock units Virgoceras has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Virgoceras and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Virgoceras and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
22 taxa- Amphoriops1 site
- Anisopleurella antiqua1 site
- Bellimurina (Bellimurina) fluctuosa1 site
- Calyptolepta1 site
- Christiania1 site
- Diestoceras approximatum1 site
- Dirafinesquina globosa1 site
- Dulankarella1 site
- Fremontoceras jewetti1 site
- Gorbyoceras1 site
- Lepidomena multiplicata1 site
- Leptastichidia1 site
- Nileus1 site
- Opsimasaphus1 site
- Orthis1 site
- Orthoceras1 site
- Phragmorthis1 site
- Polytoechia1 site
- Porambonites1 site
- Rogorthis1 site
- Saucrorthis obtusa1 site
- Semnanostrophia lata1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Virgoceras, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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
2 references- The Cephalopod Fauna of the Bardahessaigh Formation (Caradoc Series) of Pomeroy, County Tyrone2
- Emergence of the Saucrorthis Fauna in the Middle Ordovician of northern Iran1
Each of the 3 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 content1

Picture of Virgoceras
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Virgoceras 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itGeisonoceratidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Flower 1939