genus of extinct graptolites (colonial animals related to the chordates) that occur as fossils in marine rocks of the Early Ordovician Epoch (505 to 478 million years ago). The genus is a useful guide, or index (index fossil), fossil for the Early Ordovician; long-distance correlations between rock units are possible employing the many known Tetragraptus species. As its name implies, Tetragraptus is distinguished by its four branches, which are suspended from a thin filamentous support.