Cincta
Cincta is an extinct class of echinoderms that lived only in the Middle Cambrian epoch. Homostelea is a junior synonym. The classification of cinctans is controversial, but they are probably part of the echinoderm stem group.

Dwergenpaartje · 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
- EchinodermataPBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB
- Motility
- stationaryPBDB
- Vision
- blindPBDB
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Echinodermata
Time the record covers
At least 320 million years on record.
The record covers at least 504.5 Mya to 184.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 508.2 Mya to 174.7 Mya.
149 occurrences of Cincta on record, most of them in the Cambrian. 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
149 occurrences- Cambrian52%
- Early Jurassic48%
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
31 formations
- Murero Formation · Mesones Group22
- Belemnite Marls Formation14
- Oville Formation10
- La Gardie Formation10
- Rio Palomar Formation8
- Nevian Formation8
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Cincta has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 24 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Cincta and its relatives
CambrianWhere Cincta and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.
Found in the same rock
440 taxa- Gibbirhynchia curviceps19 sites
- Gyrocystis platessa13 sites
- Lobothyris punctata12 sites
- Oxytoma inequivalvis9 sites
- Tetrarhynchia ranina9 sites
- Undatacinctus melendezi9 sites
- Ceratocystis8 sites
- Ctenocephalus8 sites
- Gryphaea8 sites
- Paradoxides (Eccaparadoxides)8 sites
- Spiriferina8 sites
- Ceratocystis perneri7 sites
- Conocoryphe7 sites
- Elliptocinctus barrandei7 sites
- Tetrarhynchia dunrobinensis7 sites
- Lobothyris6 sites
- Palaeoneilo galatea6 sites
- Rhynchonellida6 sites
- Zeilleria (Zeilleria) darwini6 sites
- Amberleya5 sites
- Callospiriferina tumida5 sites
- Callospiriferina verrucosa5 sites
- Cuersithyris radstockiensis5 sites
- Ellipsocephalus5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 125 sites for Cincta, 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
48 references- Equinodermos del Cámbrico medio de las Cadenas Ibéricas y de la zona Cantábrica (Norte de España)23
- The Belemnite marls of Charmouth, a series in the Lias of the Dorset Coast14
- Les brachiopodes liasiques des Pyrénées: paléontologie, biostratigraphie, paléobiogéographie et paléoenvironnements10
- El Jurasico Inferior en la seccion de Almonacid de la Cuba (sector central de la Cordillera Iberica, Zaragoza, Espana) [Lower Jurassic at the Almonacid de la Cuba section (central sector of the Iberian Range, Zaragoza, Spain)]8
- Les Echinodermes Cincta du Cambriende la Montagne Noire (France)8
- Brachiopodes liasiques de la Bordure Sud du Massif Armoricain7
- Révision biostratigraphique du Cambrien moyen du versant méridional de la Montagne Noire (Languedoc, France)7
- The Stratigraphical Palaeontology, ammonites excluded, of the Stowell Park borehole7
- Nouveau découpage stratigraphique: des séries cambriennes des nappes de Pardailhan et du Minervois (versant sud de la Montagne noire)5
- A temporary exposure of Lower Lias (Late Sinemurian) at Dimmer Camp, Castle Cary, Somerset, south-west England5
- Testing for a decline in diversity prior to extinction: Languedocian (latest mid‐Cambrian) distribution of cinctans (Echinodermata) in the Iberian Chains, NE Spain4
- The ontogeny of Cinctans (stem-group Echinodermata) as revealed by a new genus, Graciacystis, from the middle Cambrian of Spain3
Each of the 149 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. 36 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 Cincta
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Dwergenpaartje
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Cincta was found in Sketchfab.
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, “Cincta”
- 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 itEchinodermata through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Jaekel 1918)