Astreopora
Searched as Astreopora ehrenbergi sphaerostoma. The Paleobiology Database treats Astreopora as the accepted name.
Astreopora is a genus of stony corals in the Acroporidae family. Members of the genus are commonly known as star corals and there are seventeen species currently recognized.

Diego Delso · 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
- AcroporidaePBDB
- Diet
- photosymbiotic, suspension feederPBDB, for Acroporidae
- Life habit
- colonial, clonalPBDB, for Acroporidae
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Anthozoa
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Scleractinia
Time the record covers
At most 2.8 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 5.333 Mya and 2.58 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Astreopora on record, most of them in the Pliocene. 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
1 occurrences- Pliocene100%
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.
Astreopora and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Astreopora and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
1,321 taxa- Porites51 sites
- Acropora30 sites
- Goniopora28 sites
- Montastraea26 sites
- Antiguastrea25 sites
- Stylophora23 sites
- Actinacis rollei21 sites
- Pavona21 sites
- Actinacis19 sites
- Favites18 sites
- Favia16 sites
- Porites nummulitica15 sites
- Alveopora14 sites
- Caulastrea14 sites
- Alveopora rudis13 sites
- Astrocoenia lobatorotundata13 sites
- Colpophyllia12 sites
- Favia subdenticulata12 sites
- Montipora12 sites
- Hydnophora11 sites
- Leptoseris11 sites
- Montastrea inaequalis11 sites
- Variabilifavia confertissima11 sites
- Acropora haidingeri10 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 115 sites for Astreopora, 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
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence 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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Astreopora
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Diego Delso
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Astreopora”
- 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 itAcroporidae through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Blainville 1830