Palæont. [mod.L. spirifer (Sowerby, 1816), f. L. spīra SPIRE sb.3 + -fer bearing.] A genus of fossil brachiopods, found abundantly in the Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous formations, characterized by long highly developed spiral appendages; a member or species of this genus, or of the family Spiriferidæ of which it is the type. Also attrib.
1835. Penny Cycl., III. 125/1. A particular kind of fossil-shell, named a spirifer, has indeed been detected in it.
1839. De la Beche, Rep. Geol. Cornwall, etc. iii. 47. Those seams which contain casts of broken vertebral columns of … spirifers, and corals.
1872. H. A. Nicholson, Palæont., 205. The true Spirifers are mainly Silurian and Devonian.
1890. Geikie, Class-bk. Geol., (ed. 2), xix. 266. The Devonian system [contains] … Cypridina-shales, Spirifer sandstone.
