Asteroidea

Searched as Asteroidea indet.. The Paleobiology Database treats Asteroidea as the accepted name.

Starfish or sea stars are a class of echinoderms generally shaped like a star polygon. Starfish are also known as asteroids because they form the taxonomic class Asteroidea. About 1,900 species of starfish live on the seabed, and are found in all the world's oceans, from warm, tropical zones to frigid, polar regions. They can occur from the intertidal zone down to abyssal depths, at 6,000 m (20,000 ft) below the surface.

Asteroidea

Top left: Klaus Rassinger (Museum Wiesbaden) Top right: Katie Ahlfeld Bottom right: Jon Zander (Digon3) Bottom left:… · 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
Also called
sea starPBDB
Sits inside
AsterozoaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
low-level epifaunalPBDB
Motility
slow-movingPBDB
Vision
limitedPBDB
Environment
marinePBDB, for Echinodermata

Time the record covers

At least 462 million years on record.

The record covers at least 463.3 Mya to 774 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 471.3 Mya to 129 ka.

Ordovician — about 12 of 139 occurrencesSilurian — about 6 of 139 occurrencesDevonian — about 11 of 139 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 29 of 139 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 2 of 139 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 139 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 139 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 1 of 139 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 1 of 139 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 24 of 139 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 15 of 139 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 5 of 139 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 15 of 139 occurrencesPaleocene — about 2 of 139 occurrencesEocene — about 5 of 139 occurrencesOligocene — about 6 of 139 occurrencesMiocene — about 1 of 139 occurrencesPliocene — about 3 of 139 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1 of 139 occurrences481–465 Mya — about 3 occurrences465–449 Mya — about 9 occurrences449–433 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences433–417 Mya — about 7 occurrences417–401 Mya — about 1 occurrence401–385 Mya — about 3 occurrences385–369 Mya — about 2 occurrences369–353 Mya — about 5 occurrences353–337 Mya — about 6 occurrences337–320 Mya — about 2 occurrences320–304 Mya — about 19 occurrences304–288 Mya — about 1 occurrence288–272 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences272–256 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences256–240 Mya — about 1 occurrence240–224 Mya — about 1 occurrence208–192 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences192–176 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences176–160 Mya — about 26 occurrences160–144 Mya — about 12 occurrences144–128 Mya — about 2 occurrences128–112 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences112–96 Mya — about 6 occurrences96–80 Mya — about 9 occurrences80–64 Mya — about 3 occurrences64–48 Mya — about 3 occurrences48–32 Mya — about 5 occurrences32–16 Mya — about 6 occurrences16–0 Mya — about 4 occurrences463.3 Mya774 ka481 Mya0 Mya

139 occurrences of Asteroidea on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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

139 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

64 formations

Wewoka — 35.04°N, 96.36°WDyer — 39.77°N, 107.35°WGeneseo — 42.67°N, 75.59°WGeneseo — 42.77°N, 75.77°WBorden — 36.44°N, 88.06°WBobcaygeon — 44.50°N, 79.20°WBobcaygeon — 44.60°N, 79.00°WKeasey — 46.00°N, 123.26°WKahuitara Tuff — 44.33°S, 176.00°WKahuitara Tuff — 44.24°S, 176.24°WCraie de Villedieu — 45.00°N, 0.37°ESarka — 50.00°N, 14.00°EPassage Beds — 54.21°N, 0.29°WHambleton Oolite — 54.21°N, 0.29°WWayne — 35.38°N, 88.00°WWayne — 38.08°N, 87.02°WKukpowruk — 68.93°N, 163.01°WKukpowruk — 69.02°N, 162.90°WNeuburger Bank-Kalken — 47.67°N, 15.58°ERenggeri-Ton — 45.95°N, 5.55°ERenggeri-Ton — 46.83°N, 5.97°ELochkov — 50.03°N, 14.33°ELochkov — 49.98°N, 14.18°EAvon Park — 29.01°N, 82.65°WKings Falls — 43.21°N, 75.46°WPorters Creek — 31.90°N, 86.88°WCoralline Oolite — 54.21°N, 0.29°WMiddle Calcareous Grit — 54.21°N, 0.29°WArgile de Villerville — 49.37°N, 0.08°ESobral — 39.10°N, 9.27°WMaquoketa — 43.28°N, 91.37°W

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The named rock units Asteroidea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 40 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 34 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Asteroidea and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Asteroidea and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

3,214 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 653 sites for Asteroidea, and this reads 240 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

65 references

Each of the 139 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. 53 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 content2

Picture of Asteroidea

Credit
Top left: Klaus Rassinger (Museum Wiesbaden) Top right: Katie Ahlfeld Bottom right: Jon Zander (Digon3) Bottom left:…
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC0 Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

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 itAsterozoa through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (de Blainville 1830)