Catopygus

Catopygus is an extinct genus of sea urchins in the family Nucleolitidae.

Catopygus

Uncredited · 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
CassidulidaePBDB
Diet
detritivorePBDB, for Cassiduloida
Life habit
semi-infaunalPBDB, for Cassiduloida
Motility
slow-movingPBDB, for Cassiduloida
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Echinoidea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Echinodermata

Time the record covers

At least 53 million years on record.

The record covers at least 113.2 Mya to 59.24 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 121.4 Mya to 56 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 6 of 48 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 40 of 48 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 2 of 48 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 0 of 48 occurrences123–120 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences120–118 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences118–116 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences116–114 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences114–111 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences111–109 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences107–105 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences105–102 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences102–100 Mya — about 3 occurrences100–98 Mya — about 10 occurrences98–96 Mya — about 10 occurrences96–93 Mya — about 7 occurrences93–91 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences91–89 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences89–86 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences86–84 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences84–82 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences82–80 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences80–77 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences77–75 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences75–73 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences73–71 Mya — about 2 occurrences71–68 Mya — about 2 occurrences68–66 Mya — about 2 occurrences66–64 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences64–61 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences61–59 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences59–57 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences57–55 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences113.2 Mya59.24 Mya123 Mya55 Mya

48 occurrences of Catopygus on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

48 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

20 formations

Grizzle — 50.80°N, 0.18°EUpper Greensand — 50.80°N, 0.18°EUpper Greensand — 51.28°N, 0.37°WUpper Greensand — 50.75°N, 2.33°WWilmington Sands — 50.80°N, 0.18°EGulpen — 50.80°N, 5.67°EFerruginous Sands — 50.63°N, 1.17°WFolkestone — 51.08°N, 1.08°WSandgate — 51.23°N, 0.58°WMunday’s Hill Phosphatic Sandstone — 51.92°N, 0.67°WPrairie Bluff — 33.72°N, 88.92°WMaastricht — 50.80°N, 5.67°EGulpen — 50.85°N, 5.70°EMaastricht — 50.85°N, 5.70°EB3/C1 — 45.93°N, 0.98°WMerchantville — 40.30°N, 74.17°WPrairie Bluff Chalk — 33.96°N, 88.94°WGlauconitic Marl — 52.33°N, 2.28°WEggardon Grit — 50.77°N, 2.57°WCraie glauconieuse — 48.84°N, 0.13°ESan Francisquito — 34.44°N, 117.88°WSanta Susana — 34.22°N, 118.71°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Catopygus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 19 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Catopygus and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Catopygus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

395 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 47 sites for Catopygus, 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

15 references

Each of the 48 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. 3 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 Catopygus

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itCassidulidae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.