Meandrina
Searched as Meandrina lamellina leptochila. The Paleobiology Database treats Meandrina as the accepted name.
Meandrina is a genus of colonial stony coral in the family Meandrinidae. Corals in this genus form massive hemispherical heads or have large flat plates and can grow to a metre (yard) across. Sometimes it is referred to as brain coral.

Nhobgood Nick Hobgood · 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
- MeandrinidaePBDB
- Diet
- photosymbiotic, suspension feederPBDB, for Faviina
- Life habit
- colonial, clonalPBDB, for Faviina
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Faviina
- 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 Meandrina 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.
Meandrina and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Meandrina and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
473 taxa- Agaricia agaricites16 sites
- Colpophyllia natans16 sites
- Manicina areolata16 sites
- Porites astreoides16 sites
- Pseudodiploria strigosa13 sites
- Siderastrea siderea13 sites
- Stephanocoenia intersepta9 sites
- Acropora cervicornis8 sites
- Acropora palmata8 sites
- Dichocoenia stokesi8 sites
- Diploria labyrinthiformis8 sites
- Eusmilia fastigiata8 sites
- Montastraea faveolata8 sites
- Orbicella limbata8 sites
- Stephanocoenia duncani8 sites
- Agaricia lamarcki7 sites
- Montastraea cavernosa7 sites
- Montastraea cylindrica7 sites
- Orbicella annularis7 sites
- Porites7 sites
- Caulastrea portoricensis6 sites
- Favites6 sites
- Leptoseris cucullata6 sites
- Madracis myriaster6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 44 sites for Meandrina, 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 Meandrina
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Nhobgood Nick Hobgood
- 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, “Meandrina”
- 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 itMeandrinidae through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lamarck 1801