Ctenactis echinata
Ctenactis echinata is a free-living species of solitary disc coral in the family Fungiidae. It is native to the Indo-Pacific region. This is a common species throughout its wide range and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated its conservation status as being of "least concern".

Paul Asman and Jill Lenoble · CC BY 2.0 · 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
- CtenactisPBDB
- Diet
- photosymbiotic, suspension feederPBDB, for Fungiidae
- Life habit
- epifaunal, colonial, clonalPBDB, for Fungiidae
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Fungiidae
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Anthozoa
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Fungiidae
Time the record covers
At least 3.4 million years on record.
The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka.
8 occurrences of Ctenactis echinata on record, most of them in the Pliocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
8 occurrences- Pliocene69%
- Pleistocene31%
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
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Ctenactis echinata has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Ctenactis echinata and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Ctenactis echinata and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
194 taxa- Blastomussa simplicitexta4 sites
- Cycloseris cyclolites4 sites
- Galaxea astreata4 sites
- Cyathoseris lophiophora3 sites
- Diploastrea heliopora3 sites
- Favites abdita3 sites
- Fungia3 sites
- Goniastrea retiformis3 sites
- Leptoria phrygia3 sites
- Lithophyllon concinna3 sites
- Merulina ampliata3 sites
- Platygyra daedalea3 sites
- Pocillopora jenkinsi3 sites
- Symphyllia recta3 sites
- Astreopora myriophthalma2 sites
- Cycloseris somervillei2 sites
- Cyphastrea chalcidicum2 sites
- Cyphastrea microphthalma2 sites
- Cyphastrea serailia2 sites
- Dictyaraea anomala2 sites
- Dipsastraea speciosa2 sites
- Favites2 sites
- Favites pentagona2 sites
- Fungia inaequicostata2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Ctenactis echinata, 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
7 references- Corals from a lower Pliocene patch reef in Central Java2
- Biofacies and diagenetic alterations of the Pleistocene coral reefs, northwest Red Sea coast, Saudi Arabia1
- Evolutionary dynamics of Indo-Pacific reef corals throughout the Neogene1
- Facies, Fossil Record, and Age of Pleistocene Reefs from the Red Sea (Saudi Arabia)1
- Coral species stability in reef corals of Papua New Guinea and the Indo-Pacific1
- Corals from the Upper Kalibeng beds (Upper Pliocene) of Java1
- Neogene en Pleistoceene Koralen van Sumatra1
Each of the 8 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. 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 Ctenactis echinata
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Paul Asman and Jill Lenoble
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- 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 itCtenactis through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Pallas 1766)