Agaricia
Searched as Agaricia agaricites purpurea. The Paleobiology Database treats Agaricia as the accepted name.
Agaricia is a genus of colonial stony corals in the family Agariciidae. These corals are found in shallow waters of the West Indies.

LASZLO ILYES (laszlo-photo) from Cleveland, Ohio, USA · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- AgariciidaePBDB
- Diet
- microcarnivore, photosymbioticPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Life habit
- intermediate-level epifaunal, colonial, clonalPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Anthozoa
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Scleractinia
Time the record covers
At most 5.4 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 5.333 Mya and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
4 occurrences of Agaricia on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
4 occurrences- Pliocene25%
- Pleistocene75%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Agaricia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Agaricia and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Agaricia and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
513 taxa- Orbicella limbata53 sites
- Siderastrea siderea52 sites
- Stephanocoenia duncani52 sites
- Stephanocoenia intersepta52 sites
- Madracis decactis50 sites
- Porites astreoides50 sites
- Acropora cervicornis46 sites
- Montastraea cylindrica44 sites
- Manicina areolata43 sites
- Colpophyllia natans40 sites
- Caulastrea portoricensis39 sites
- Montastraea faveolata35 sites
- Dichocoenia stokesi34 sites
- Placocyathus variabilis34 sites
- Pseudodiploria strigosa34 sites
- Madracis myriaster33 sites
- Acropora palmata32 sites
- Montastraea cavernosa30 sites
- Porites furcata30 sites
- Leptoseris cucullata25 sites
- Diploria labyrinthiformis22 sites
- Porites baracoaensis22 sites
- Stylophora granulata22 sites
- Montastraea franksi20 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 168 sites for Agaricia, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
2 references- Geology of the Republic of Haiti3
- Fossil corals from central America, Cuba, and Porto Rico, with an account of the American Tertiary, Pleistocene, and Recent coral reefs1
Each of the 4 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content3
Picture of Agaricia
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- LASZLO ILYES (laszlo-photo) from Cleveland, Ohio, USA
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D scan
- Source
- Smithsonian
- Licence
- CC0 — this site’s default, not the record’s
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
- Specimen
- Agaricia fragilis contracta
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC0 Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Agaricia”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itAgariciidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lamarck 1801