Dendraster gibbsii
Dendraster gibbsii is an extinct species of echinoderm of the family Dendrasteridae. Fossils of this species have been found in the Pliocene of California. They reach a diameter of about 3.5 cm.

James St. John · 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
- DendrasterPBDB
- Diet
- detritivorePBDB, for Clypeasteroida
- Life habit
- semi-infaunalPBDB, for Clypeasteroida
- Motility
- slow-movingPBDB, for Clypeasteroida
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Echinoidea
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Echinodermata
Time the record covers
At least 11 million years on record.
The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 4.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 1.4 Mya.
18 occurrences of Dendraster gibbsii on record, most of them in the Pliocene. 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
18 occurrences- Miocene28%
- Pliocene68%
- Pleistocene4%
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
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The named rock units Dendraster gibbsii has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Dendraster gibbsii and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Dendraster gibbsii and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
121 taxa- Patinopecten lohri9 sites
- Panopea generosa8 sites
- Anadara trilineata7 sites
- Pseudocardium densatum7 sites
- Mytilus (Crenomytilus) coalingensis5 sites
- Saxidomus nuttalli5 sites
- Calliostoma coalingensis4 sites
- Calyptraea filosa4 sites
- Clavus (Clathrodrillia) coalingensis4 sites
- Glycymeris septentrionalis4 sites
- Lyropecten terminus4 sites
- Megangulus bodegensis4 sites
- Pusio kettlemanensis4 sites
- Securella elsmerensis4 sites
- Tresus nuttallii4 sites
- Callithaca tenerrima3 sites
- Concavus concavus3 sites
- Diplodonta parilis3 sites
- Leporimetis obesa3 sites
- Megasurcula carpenteriana3 sites
- Polinices (Euspira) galianoi3 sites
- Astrodapsis jacalitosensis2 sites
- Balanus gregarius2 sites
- Caesia californiana2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Dendraster gibbsii, 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
5 references- The Etchegoin Pliocene of middle California13
- Geology of the Kettleman Hills Oil Field, California, Stratigraphy, Paleontology and Structure2
- A new species of cancroid crab from the Pliocene of California1
- Reconnaissance of the geology and oil possibilities of Baja California, Mexico1
- Expedition to the Revillagigedo Islands, Mexico, in 1925, VII. Contribution to the geology and paleontology of the Tertiary of Cedros Island and adjacent parts of Lower California1
Each of the 18 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 Dendraster gibbsii
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- James St. John
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Dendraster gibbsii 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 itDendraster through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Rémond 1863)