Alcyonacea

Alcyonacea, in English soft corals or alcyonacians, is a former order of Octocorallia. Since a 2022 revision of Octocorallia, the content of Alcyonacea has been included in the order Malacalcyonacea and, to a lesser extent, in the order Scleralcyonacea, these two new orders now making up the order Octocorallia.

Alcyonacea

User:Haplochromis · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
OctocoralliaPBDB
Diet
microcarnivore, photosymbioticPBDB
Life habit
intermediate-level epifaunalPBDB
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB
Vision
blindPBDB, for Anthozoa

Time the record covers

At least 65 million years on record.

The record covers at least 66 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 72.2 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 1 of 47 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 1 of 47 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 5 of 47 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 1 of 47 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 13 of 47 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 10 of 47 occurrencesPleistocene — about 12 of 47 occurrences74–71 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences71–69 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences69–66 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences66–64 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences61–59 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences59–56 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences56–54 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences52–49 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences42–39 Mya — about 1 occurrence39–37 Mya — about 1 occurrence37–34 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences34–32 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences32–29 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences29–27 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences25–22 Mya — about 1 occurrence22–20 Mya — about 3 occurrences20–17 Mya — about 3 occurrences17–15 Mya — about 1 occurrence12–9.8 Mya — about 1 occurrence9.8–7.4 Mya — about 1 occurrence7.4–4.9 Mya — about 4 occurrences4.9–2.5 Mya — about 9 occurrences2.5–0 Mya — about 16 occurrences66 Mya11.7 ka74 Mya0 Mya

47 occurrences of Alcyonacea on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

47 occurrences

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

15 formations

Riukiu Limestone — 28.33°N, 130.00°ERiukiu Limestone — 24.75°N, 125.33°ERiukiu Limestone — 24.45°N, 123.00°ESaidabad Coral Limestone — 29.52°N, 55.88°ESaidabad Coral Limestone — 29.42°N, 55.83°ESaidabad Coral Limestone — 29.22°N, 55.83°ERed Bluff Tuff — 44.30°S, 176.25°WRed Bluff Tuff — 44.30°S, 176.25°EBrèches rouges de Carboneras — 37.60°N, 1.32°WHateruma — 24.04°N, 123.79°EMiyako-jima — 24.80°N, 125.28°ESicilian — 38.15°N, 15.65°ETakamaka Limestone — 9.42°S, 46.45°EBoat Cove — 29.23°S, 177.88°WDayrell — 29.23°S, 177.82°WSobe — 26.39°N, 127.73°ENaha — 26.08°N, 127.67°EKakanui Limestone — 45.18°S, 170.90°EDanish White Chalk — 55.30°N, 12.45°ESanta Susana — 34.24°N, 118.74°W

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The named rock units Alcyonacea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 27 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Alcyonacea and its relatives

Miocene

Where Alcyonacea and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

293 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 22 sites for Alcyonacea, 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

28 references

Each of the 47 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. 16 further references are not listed. 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 content1

Picture of Alcyonacea

Credit
User:Haplochromis
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Alcyonacea was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

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 itOctocorallia through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lamouroux 1816