See Species Rafinesquina is an extinct genus of large brachiopod that existed from the Darriwilian to the Ludlow epoch.

[1] The genus was named in honor of polymath Constantine Samuel Rafinesque-Schmaltz.

[2] Rafinesquina's members were epifaunal, meaning they lived on top of the seafloor, not buried within it, and were suspension feeders.

In 1982, Gary D. Rosenberg analyzed specimens of Rafinesquina alternata previously inferred to have lived in a shallow subtidal environment and proposed it could be possible to estimate the total number of days in a lunar month (the period between full moons) during the Late Ordovician using layer counting.

[4] Rafinesquina specimens had a cosmopolitan distribution, and their fossils can be found in the Americas, Europe, and Asia.