The marine world of the Devonian Period had a large number of brachiopods. Devonian Period, in geologic time, an interval of the Paleozoic Era that follows the Silurian Period and precedes the Carboniferous Period, spanning between about 419.2 million and 358.9 million years ago. The southwestern sector (now South America) was located to the far south, with Brazil situated near the South Pole. The vast fossil record of insects can be used to calibrate the timescale of insect evolution and estimate rates of diversification. Brachiopods (ToL: Brachiopoda