Anostraca

Anostraca is one of the four orders of crustaceans in the class Branchiopoda; its members are referred to as fairy shrimp. They live in vernal pools and hypersaline lakes across the world, and they have even been found in deserts, ice-covered mountain lakes, and Antarctic ice. They are usually 6–25 mm (0.24–0.98 in) long. Most species have 20 body segments, bearing 11 pairs of leaf-like phyllopodia, and the body lacks a carapace. They swim "upside-down" and feed by filtering organic particles from the water or by scraping algae from surfaces, with the exception of Branchinecta gigas, or "giant fairy shrimp", which is itself a predator of other species of anostracans. They are an important food for many birds and fish, and some are cultured and harvested for use as fish food. There are 300 species spread across 8 families.

Anostraca

Hans Hillewaert · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
BranchiopodaPBDB
Diet
suspension feeder, detritivorePBDB, for Branchiopoda
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Branchiopoda
Motility
slow-movingPBDB, for Branchiopoda
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Branchiopoda
Environment
marine,brackish,freshwaterPBDB, for Branchiopoda

Time the record covers

At least 392 million years on record.

The record covers at least 410.62 Mya to 18.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 413.02 Mya to 16.3 Mya.

Silurian — about 0 of 26 occurrencesDevonian — about 2 of 26 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 1 of 26 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 0 of 26 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 26 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 26 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 26 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 26 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 26 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 26 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 26 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 26 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 26 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 26 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 26 occurrencesMiocene — about 22 of 26 occurrences421–407 Mya — about 1 occurrence366–352 Mya — about 1 occurrence311–297 Mya — about 1 occurrence132–118 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences118–105 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences22–8.4 Mya — about 22 occurrences410.62 Mya18.5 Mya421 Mya8 Mya

26 occurrences of Anostraca on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

26 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

4 formations

Barstow — 34.95°N, 116.83°WBarstow — 34.94°N, 116.83°WDryden Flags — 57.34°N, 2.85°WWynyard — 41.25°S, 145.54°EEvieux — 50.45°N, 5.06°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Anostraca has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Anostraca and its relatives

Miocene

Where Anostraca and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

166 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 26 sites for Anostraca, 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

6 references

Each of the 26 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Anostraca

Credit
Hans Hillewaert
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Anostraca 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 itBranchiopoda through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Sars 1867