Lioestheria

Lioestheria is an extinct genus of clam shrimp that thrived from the Carboniferous to the Cretaceous. They fed on detritus, being very small slow moving, nektonic organisms that filter fed as they floated. They have been found in both marine and freshwater environments.

Lioestheria

William Thomas Calman · 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
LioestheriidaePBDB
Diet
suspension feeder, detritivorePBDB, for Branchiopoda
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Branchiopoda
Motility
slow-movingPBDB, for Branchiopoda
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Branchiopoda
Environment
marine,brackish,freshwaterPBDB, for Branchiopoda

Time the record covers

At least 238 million years on record.

The record covers at least 351.9 Mya to 113.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 358.86 Mya to 100.5 Mya.

Devonian — about 0 of 22 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 3 of 22 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 4 of 22 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 1 of 22 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 22 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 3 of 22 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 22 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 22 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 7 of 22 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 4 of 22 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 22 occurrences364–355 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences355–346 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences328–319 Mya — about 1 occurrence319–310 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences301–292 Mya — about 2 occurrences292–283 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences283–274 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences274–266 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences266–257 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences257–248 Mya — about 2 occurrences248–239 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences239–230 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences230–221 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences221–212 Mya — about 1 occurrence212–203 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences203–194 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences158–149 Mya — about 2 occurrences149–140 Mya — about 5 occurrences122–113 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences113–104 Mya — about 2 occurrences104–95 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences351.9 Mya113.2 Mya364 Mya95 Mya

22 occurrences of Lioestheria on record, most of them in the Late Jurassic. 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

22 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

10 formations

Morrison — 39.24°N, 109.00°WMorrison — 45.22°N, 108.83°WMorrison — 39.15°N, 108.77°WMorrison — 38.85°N, 108.46°WPaluxy — 32.88°N, 97.50°WPaluxy — 33.50°N, 97.50°WPaluxy — 33.12°N, 97.57°WDe Geerdalen — 77.62°N, 14.98°EDe Geerdalen — 78.10°N, 13.88°EBoda — 46.07°N, 18.00°EAntlers — 33.28°N, 97.62°WKayitou — 25.83°N, 104.38°ESappington — 45.78°N, 111.81°WTambach — 50.81°N, 10.62°EBursum — 34.84°N, 106.91°WMount Glossopteris — 84.83°S, 113.75°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Lioestheria has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Lioestheria and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Lioestheria and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

146 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Lioestheria, 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

14 references

Each of the 22 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. 2 further references are not listed. 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 Lioestheria

Credit
William Thomas Calman
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Lioestheria 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 itLioestheriidae through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Deperet and Mazeran 1912)