Hemiaster californicus
via iDigBio · via iDigBio. 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
- HemiasterPBDB
- Diet
- deposit feeder, detritivorePBDB, for Spatangoida
- Life habit
- shallow infaunalPBDB, for Spatangoida
- Motility
- slow-movingPBDB, for Spatangoida
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Echinoidea
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Spatangoida
Time the record covers
At most 11 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 93.9 Mya and 83.6 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
4 occurrences of Hemiaster californicus on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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
4 occurrences- Late Cretaceous100%
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
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The named rock units Hemiaster californicus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Hemiaster californicus and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Hemiaster californicus and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
16 taxa- Alleinacin sulcata2 sites
- Dentalium (Entalis) whiteavesi2 sites
- Glycymeris pacifica2 sites
- Amuletum1 site
- Anomia1 site
- Dentalium1 site
- Inoperna bellarugosa1 site
- Paladmete1 site
- Pinna1 site
- Pinna calamitoides1 site
- Polinices shumardianus1 site
- Saturnus dubius1 site
- Solariella crenulata1 site
- Subprionocyclus1 site
- Syncyclonema operculiformis1 site
- Volsella siskiyouensis1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Hemiaster californicus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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- Late Cretaceous paleoecology of the Holz Shale, Orange County, California3
- The Mesozoic and Cenozoic Echinodermata of the United States1
Each of the 4 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 Hemiaster californicus
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itHemiaster through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Clark 1891