Paraspirifer is a genus of large brachiopods (up to about 7.5 centimetres or 3.0 inches) that lived during the late Lower and Middle Devonian in what now are Germany, Spain, Morocco and the United States (New York State and Ohio).

Paraspirifer developed from Brachyspirifer during the early upper Emsian (cancellata-elegans/Dalehe Event).

[2] Paraspirifer originated in the lower upper Emsian and became extinct in Europe and Northern Africa at the end of the lower Eifelian.

[3] From the type of deposits that contain Paraspirifer bownockeri it can be deduced that this species inhabited soft clay mudflats.

Shells of this species hosted a wide range of epibionts, such as bryozoans, corals, echinoderms, annelid worms and other brachiopods.