Echinosphaerites

Searched as Echinosphaerites aurantium infrum. The Paleobiology Database treats Echinosphaerites as the accepted name.

Echinosphaerites is a genus of rhombiferan cystoid echinoderms that lived in the Early to Middle Ordovician of North America and Europe.

Echinosphaerites

Wilson44691 at English Wikipedia · 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
EchinosphaeritidaePBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB, for Rhombifera
Life habit
intermediate-level epifaunalPBDB, for Rhombifera
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB, for Rhombifera
Vision
blindPBDB, for Rhombifera
Environment
marinePBDB, for Echinodermata

Time the record covers

At most 2.9 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 464.3 Mya and 461.4 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Ordovician — about 2 of 2 occurrencesOrdovician464–464 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences464–464 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences464–464 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences464–464 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences464–464 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences464–464 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences464–464 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences464–463 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences463–463 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences463–463 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences463–463 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences463–463 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences463–463 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences463–463 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences463–462 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences462–462 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences462–462 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences462–462 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences462–462 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences462–462 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences462–462 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences462–462 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences462–461 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences461–461 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences464.8 Mya460.9 Mya

2 occurrences of Echinosphaerites on record, most of them in the Ordovician. 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

2 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

1 formation

Kandle — 59.42°N, 24.75°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Echinosphaerites has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Echinosphaerites and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Echinosphaerites and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

969 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 95 sites for Echinosphaerites, 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

1 reference

Each of the 2 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Echinosphaerites

Credit
Wilson44691 at English Wikipedia
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

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 itEchinosphaeritidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Wahlenberg 1818