Echmatocrinus

Echmatocrinus brachiatus is an extinct species of Cambrian animal which resembles a crinoid or an octocoral. Its exact taxonomy is still a subject of debate. It is known only from the Burgess Shale. Around 20 specimens of Echmatocrinus are known; these comprise <0.02% of the community.

Echmatocrinus

Claire H. from New York City, USA · CC BY-SA 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
EchmatocrinidaePBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB
Vision
blindPBDB, for Anthozoa

Time the record covers

At most 13 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 509.7 Mya and 497 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Cambrian — about 3 of 3 occurrencesCambrian510–509 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences509–509 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences509–508 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences508–508 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences508–507 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences507–507 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences507–507 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences507–506 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences506–506 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences506–505 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences505–505 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences505–504 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences504–504 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences504–503 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences503–503 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences503–502 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences502–502 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences502–502 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences502–501 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences501–501 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences501–500 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences500–500 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences500–499 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences499–499 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences499–498 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences498–498 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences498–497 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences497–497 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences510.2 Mya496.5 Mya

3 occurrences of Echmatocrinus on record, most of them in the Cambrian. 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

3 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

2 formations

Burgess Shale — 51.44°N, 116.47°WStephen — 51.40°N, 116.48°W

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

Echmatocrinus and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Echmatocrinus and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

116 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Echmatocrinus, 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

2 references

Each of the 3 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 Echmatocrinus

Credit
Claire H. from New York City, USA
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Echmatocrinus 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.

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 itEchmatocrinidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Sprinkle 1973