Cymbella
Cymbella is a diatom genus in the family Cymbellaceae including over 800 species. The type species for this genus is Cymbella cymbiformis Agardh 1830. Cymbella species are found in freshwater environments.

Kristian Peters http://www.korseby.net/outer/flora/algae/index.html · 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
- CymbellaceaePBDB
- Diet
- "photoautotroph"PBDB, for Bacillariophyceae
- Environment
- marine,brackish,freshwaterPBDB, for Bacillariophyceae
Time the record covers
At least 5.2 million years on record.
The record covers at least 5.333 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.
36 occurrences of Cymbella on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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
36 occurrences- Miocene17%
- Pliocene15%
- Pleistocene68%
- Holoceneunder 1%
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
3 formations
- Latah Formation6
- Alturas Formation2
- Gadeb Formation · Gadeb Plain Group1
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The named rock units Cymbella has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 27 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Cymbella and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Cymbella and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
182 taxa- Thalassiosira14 sites
- Actinocyclus12 sites
- Thalassionema12 sites
- Chaetoceros11 sites
- Neodenticula11 sites
- Nitzschia11 sites
- Bacterosira9 sites
- Paralia sulcata9 sites
- Pinnularia9 sites
- Rhizosolenia9 sites
- Fragilariopsis8 sites
- Navicula8 sites
- Fragilaria7 sites
- Cyclotella6 sites
- Melosira6 sites
- Odontella6 sites
- Porosira6 sites
- Cocconeis5 sites
- Epithemia5 sites
- Thalassiothrix longissima5 sites
- Achnanthes4 sites
- Azpeitia4 sites
- Coscinodiscus4 sites
- Delphineis4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 24 sites for Cymbella, 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
13 references- A Catalogue of Indian Fossil Plants7
- Site U13456
- Flora of the Latah formation of Spokane, Washington, and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho6
- Site U14454
- Site U14182
- Site U13392
- Biogeography of the Pliocene and Pleistocene vertebrate faunas of Northeastern California and their temporal significance to the development of the Modoc Plateau and Klamath Mountain Region2
- Late Pleistocene stratigraphy at Boliden, northern Sweden2
- Site U14201
- The Afro–Asian labeonine genus Garra Hamilton, 1822 (Teleostei, Cyprinidae) in the Pliocene of Central Armenia: Palaeoecological and palaeobiogeographical implications1
- Early Pliocene (Blancan) Always Welcome Inn local fauna, Baker City, Oregon1
- The Shelton Mastodon Site: Multidisciplinary study of a late Pleistocene (Twocreekan) locality in Southeastern Michigan1
Each of the 36 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. 1 further reference is 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 Cymbella
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Kristian Peters http://www.korseby.net/outer/flora/algae/index.html
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Cymbella”
- 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 itCymbellaceae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Agardh 1830