Tropidoleptus, genus of extinct brachiopods (lamp shells) found as fossils only in marine rocks of the Devonian Period (416 million to 359 million years ago); this temporal restriction makes it a useful guide, or index, fossil, allowing correlation of widely separated rocks. The shell is roughly elliptical and distinctively ornamented with many prominent costae, riblike thickenings of the shell arranged in a linear manner and radiating from the apex to the margins. Arcuate (bow-shaped) growth lines are also present.