Prehistoric brachiopod genera

Atrypa is a genus of brachiopod with round to short egg-shaped shells covered with many fine radial ridges (or costae). Growth lines form perpendicular to the costae and are spaced approximately 2 to 3 times further apart than the costae.. The pedunculate valve is slightly convex, but oftentimes levels out or becomes slightly concave toward the anterior margin (opposite the hinge and pedicle). The brachial valve is highly convex. Neither valve contains an interarea (a flat area bordering the hinge line, approximately perpendicular with the rest of the valve). Atrypa had a large geographic rang

Terebratula is a modern genus of brachiopods with a fossil record dating back to the Late Devonian. These brachiopods are stationary epifaunal suspension feeders and have a worldwide distribution.

Platystrophia is an extinct genus of brachiopods that lived from the Ordovician to the Silurian in Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. It has a prominent sulcus and fold. It usually lived in marine lime mud and sands.

Lingulella is a genus of phosphatic-shelled brachiopod. It is known from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale (Canada) to the Upper Ordovician Bromide Formation (United States) in North America. 346 specimens of Lingulella are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise 0.66% of the community.

Discinisca is a genus of brachiopods with fossils dating back from the Early Devonian to the Pliocene of Africa, Europe, North America, and New Zealand.

Spirifer is a genus of marine brachiopods belonging to the order Spiriferida and family Spiriferidae. Species belonging to the genus lived in the Carboniferous (certainly in the Tournaisian and in the Visean, possibly also in the Serpukhovian and the Bashkirian).

Leptaena is an extinct genus of mid-sized brachiopod that existed from the Dariwilian epoch to the Emsian epoch, though some specimens have been found in strata as late in age as the Tournasian epoch. Like some other Strophomenids, Lepteana were epifaunal, meaning they lived on top of the seafloor, not buried within it, and were suspension feeders.

Mucrospirifer is a genus of extinct brachiopods in the class Rhynchonellata (Articulata) and the order Spiriferida. They are sometimes known as "butterfly shells". Like other brachiopods, they were filter feeders. These fossils occur mainly in Middle Devonian strata and appear to occur around the world, except in Australia and Antarctica.

Chonetes is an extinct genus of brachiopods. It ranged from the Late Ordovician to the Middle Jurassic.

The gall mite genus Pentamerus, established by Roivainen in 1951, is invalid and needs to be renamed. Until this happens, use Pentamerus (mite).

thumb|240px|right|Strophomena costellata from Bromide Formation, Oklahoma, USA

Rhynchonella is an extinct genus of brachiopods known from the Late Jurassic (Oxfordian) to the Early Cretaceous (Valanginian, possibly Barremian). Formerly this genus was understood much more widely (more or less an equivalent of the Rhynchonellida order in the present-day taxonomy) and less critical sources still list species of Rhynchonella from the Ordovician to the Eocene. Like most brachiopods, Rhynchonella was a stationary epifaunal suspension feeder.

Stringocephalus is an extinct genus of large brachiopods; between 388.1 to 376.1 million years old they are usually found as fossils in Devonian marine rocks. Several forms of the genus are known; they may be found in western North America, northern Europe (especially Poland), Asia and the Canning Basin of Western Australia. Several different types are known; they share a well-developed, curved structure shaped like a beak. Some of the largest specimens discovered to date have been found in China.

Gigantoproductus is a genus of extinct brachiopods in the order Productida and the family Monticuliferidae. The species were the largest of the carboniferous brachiopods, with the largest known species (Gigantoproductus giganteus) reaching in shell width. Such huge invertebrates appeared in the Mississippian as the proportion of oxygen in the atmosphere began to rise. The earliest members of the Productida date back to the Silurian period, and Gigantoproductus is known to have existed between 339.4 and 318.1 million years ago, during the Carboniferous period. As fossils, their shells occur wit

Spiriferina is an extinct genus of brachiopods that lived in the Early Jurassic. Its representatives have been reported from Europe, North Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Alaska.

Eospirifer is a genus of extinct brachiopod in the class Rhynchonellata (Articulata) and the order Spiriferida. Their fossils occur most commonly in marine calcareous, microbialitic mudstones with extensive mudcracks or shelly packstones, generally mid-Silurian to early-Devonian in age.