Discocyathus

Discocyathus

J. Gardner · CC0 · via GBIF. 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
ThecocyathinaePBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB, for Caryophylliidae
Vision
blindPBDB, for Anthozoa
Environment
marinePBDB, for Scleractinia

Time the record covers

At least 55 million years on record.

The record covers at least 168.2 Mya to 113.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 170.9 Mya to 110.1 Mya.

Middle Jurassic — about 3 of 6 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 1 of 6 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 2 of 6 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous172–170 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences170–168 Mya — about 2 occurrences151–149 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences149–147 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences147–145 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences145–143 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences122–119 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences119–117 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences117–115 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences115–113 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences113–111 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences111–109 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences168.2 Mya113.2 Mya172 Mya109 Mya

6 occurrences of Discocyathus on record, most of them in the Middle Jurassic. 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

6 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

3 formations

Folkestone — 51.32°N, 0.32°EAtherfield Clay — 51.23°N, 0.58°WDhruma — 25.50°N, 45.00°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Discocyathus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Discocyathus and its relatives

Middle Jurassic

Where Discocyathus and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

89 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Discocyathus, 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

Each of the 6 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 Discocyathus

Source
GBIF
Credit
J. Gardner
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Discocyathus was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itThecocyathinae through timeFormations of the Middle JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Milne-Edwards and Haime 1848