Trace fossil · Feeding

Zoophycos

A central vertical shaft with spiral sheets of spreite forming a pinwheel or corkscrew; a marginal tube follows the outer edge. Burrows can exceed a metre across.

Behavior

Feeding

Likely maker

Worm-like animals (often attributed to polychaetes). Ideas include deposit feeding and food caching; a 'gardening' test on Quaternary cores did not support farming.

Age range

Early Ordovician to the present. Restricted to deep water in the Silurian, found nearshore from the Devonian to the end-Permian, and today typical of deep marine muds and sands.

Setting

Name-bearer of the Zoophycos ichnofacies: quiet, often oxygen-poor water below storm wave base.

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