Cycloseris distorta
Cycloseris distorta is a species of disc coral in the family Fungiidae. It is a free-living, solitary coral and is native to the tropical and subtropical Indo-Pacific region where it is found on soft sediment in shallow water.

Anne Hoggett · CC BY 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
- CycloserisPBDB
- Diet
- microcarnivorePBDB, for Cycloseris
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Cycloseris
- Motility
- facultatively mobilePBDB, for Cycloseris
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Anthozoa
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Fungiidae
Time the record covers
At least 2.8 million years on record.
The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 774 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 129 ka.
3 occurrences of Cycloseris distorta on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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
3 occurrences- Pliocene33%
- Pleistocene67%
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
1 formation
- Naha Formation · Ryukyu Group1
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The named rock units Cycloseris distorta has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Cycloseris distorta and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Cycloseris distorta and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
71 taxa- Acanthocyathus grayi1 site
- Acropora1 site
- Actinastrea minutissima1 site
- Alveopora1 site
- Alveopora polyacantha1 site
- Astreopora myriophthalma1 site
- Balanophyllia gigas1 site
- Blastomussa simplicitexta1 site
- Caryophyllia scobinosa1 site
- Ctenactis echinata1 site
- Cyathoseris crassilamellata1 site
- Cyathoseris lophiophora1 site
- Cycloseris cyclolites1 site
- Cyphastrea chalcidicum1 site
- Cyphastrea microphthalma1 site
- Dendrophyllia subcornigera1 site
- Dictyaraea anomala1 site
- Diploastrea heliopora1 site
- Dipsastraea speciosa1 site
- Distichopora nitida1 site
- Echinophyllia javana1 site
- Echinopora gemmacea1 site
- Echinopora porosa1 site
- Favia1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Cycloseris distorta, 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
3 references- Variations in Pleistocene coral assemblages in space and time in southern and northern central Ryukyu Islands, Japan1
- Notes on Indo-Pacific Scleractinian Corals. Part 10. Late Pleistocene ahermatypic corals from Vanuatu1
- Corals from a lower Pliocene patch reef in Central Java1
Each of the 3 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 Cycloseris distorta
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Anne Hoggett
- Licence
- CC BY 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Cycloseris distorta was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
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 itCycloseris through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Michelin 1842)