Dendrogyra cylindrus

Pillar coral is a hard coral found in the western Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. It is the only species in the monotypic genus Dendrogyra. It is a digitate coral -that is, it resembles fingers or a cluster of cigars, growing up from the sea floor without any secondary branching. It is large and can grow on both flat and sloping surfaces at depths down to 20 m (65 ft). It is one of the few types of hard coral in which the polyps can commonly be seen feeding during the day.

Dendrogyra cylindrus

Uncredited · Public Domain · 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
DendrogyraPBDB
Diet
microcarnivorePBDB, for Dendrogyra
Life habit
upper-level epifaunalPBDB, for Dendrogyra
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB, for Dendrogyra
Vision
blindPBDB, for Anthozoa
Environment
marinePBDB, for Scleractinia

Time the record covers

At least 762 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 774 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 3.6 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 0 of 28 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 27 of 28 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 1 of 28 occurrences3.7–3.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.6–3.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.4–3.3 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.3–3.1 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.1–3.0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.0–2.9 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.9–2.7 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.5–2.3 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.2–2.0 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.0–1.9 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.9–1.8 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.8–1.6 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.4–1.2 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.1–957 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences957 ka–820 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences820 ka–683 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences683 ka–547 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences547 ka–410 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences410 ka–273 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences273 ka–137 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences137 ka–0 Mya — about 23 occurrences774 ka11.7 ka4.1 Mya0 Mya

28 occurrences of Dendrogyra cylindrus 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

28 occurrences

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

7 formations

Ironshore — 19.37°N, 81.37°WIronshore — 19.28°N, 81.38°WHato — 12.37°N, 69.10°WHato — 12.23°N, 69.02°WHato — 12.30°N, 69.13°WSan Luis — 12.50°N, 81.72°WManchioneal — 18.18°N, 76.42°WKey Largo Limestone/Miami Oolite — 24.67°N, 81.57°WUrraca — 9.43°N, 82.32°WIsla Colon — 9.39°N, 82.27°W

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The named rock units Dendrogyra cylindrus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Dendrogyra cylindrus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Dendrogyra cylindrus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

40 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Dendrogyra cylindrus, 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

11 references

Each of the 28 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 Dendrogyra cylindrus

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Dendrogyra cylindrus 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 itDendrogyra through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Ehrenberg 1834)