Heteropsammia cochlea
Heteropsammia cochlea, also known as walking dendro, is a species of small solitary coral in the family Dendrophylliidae that is native to the Indo-Pacific area.

Anne Hoggett · CC BY 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
- HeteropsammiaPBDB
- Diet
- microcarnivorePBDB, for Heteropsammia
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Heteropsammia
- Motility
- facultatively mobilePBDB, for Heteropsammia
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Anthozoa
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Scleractinia
Time the record covers
At least 9 million years on record.
The record covers at least 11.63 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 15.98 Mya to 11.7 ka.
5 occurrences of Heteropsammia cochlea on record. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
5 occurrences- Miocene20%
- Pliocene10%
- Pleistocene70%
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
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Heteropsammia cochlea has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
59 taxa- Balanophyllia complanata2 sites
- Fungia fungites2 sites
- Porites2 sites
- Acanthastrea hemprichii1 site
- Acanthocyathus grayi1 site
- Acanthocyathus spinosa1 site
- Acropora duncani1 site
- Alveopora daedalea1 site
- Anisocoenia crassisepta1 site
- Antillophyllia constricta1 site
- Astreopora hochstetteri1 site
- Balanophyllia oppenheimi1 site
- Caryophyllia (Acanthocyathus) laterocristatus1 site
- Coenangia polygonalis1 site
- Cyathohelia axillaris1 site
- Cyathoseris lophiophora1 site
- Cyphastrea serailia1 site
- Deltocyathus australis1 site
- Dendrophyllia digitalis1 site
- Dictyaraea anomala1 site
- Diploastrea heliopora borneensis1 site
- Dipsastraea speciosa1 site
- Echinopora crassatina1 site
- Endopachys grayi1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Heteropsammia cochlea, 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
4 references- Fossil and recent simple corals from Japan2
- Corals from the Putjangan beds (Lower Pleistocene) of Java1
- Simple corals from the Sumagui Formation, the Philippine Islands1
- Neue Beiträge zur Kenntnis der Korallenfauna des Tertiärs von Java. I: Die Korallen des Eocen und des älteren Neogen [The Tertiary coral fauna of Java. I: Eocene and Lower Neogene corals]1
Each of the 5 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 content2
Picture of Heteropsammia cochlea
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Anne Hoggett
- Licence
- CC BY 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- Ryohei Sawaura
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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 itHeteropsammia through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Spengler 1781)