Goniastrea
Searched as Goniastrea halicora obtusa. The Paleobiology Database treats Goniastrea as the accepted name.
Goniastrea is a genus of stony corals in the family Merulinidae. Species belonging to the genus Goniastrea forms massive colonies, usually spherical or elongate, with well developed paliform lobes. Polyps can be seen only at night.
Hectonichus · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
- MerulinidaePBDB
- Diet
- microcarnivore, photosymbioticPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Life habit
- intermediate-level epifaunal, colonial, clonalPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Anthozoa
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Scleractinia
Time the record covers
At most 2.8 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 5.333 Mya and 2.58 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Goniastrea on record, most of them in the Pliocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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
1 occurrences- Pliocene100%
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.
Goniastrea and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Goniastrea and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
1,031 taxa- Porites65 sites
- Acropora49 sites
- Favia33 sites
- Montipora28 sites
- Platygyra26 sites
- Galaxea fascicularis25 sites
- Leptoria phrygia25 sites
- Platygyra daedalea22 sites
- Cyphastrea18 sites
- Fungia18 sites
- Cyphastrea microphthalma17 sites
- Cyphastrea serailia17 sites
- Dipsastraea pallida17 sites
- Favites17 sites
- Platygyra lamellina17 sites
- Stylophora pistillata17 sites
- Diploastrea heliopora16 sites
- Pocillopora16 sites
- Pocillopora verrucosa16 sites
- Favites abdita15 sites
- Goniopora14 sites
- Isopora palifera14 sites
- Alveopora13 sites
- Astrea curta13 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 138 sites for Goniastrea, 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 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence 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 Goniastrea
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Hectonichus
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC0 Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Goniastrea”
- 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 itMerulinidae through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Milne-Edwards and Haime 1848