Mediaster

Mediaster is a genus of starfish in the family Goniasteridae. It was circumscribed in 1857 by William Stimpson for M. aequalis, the genus's type species. Its junior synonym is the genus Isaster, which was circumscribed in 1894 by Addison Emery Verrill for the species now known as M. bairdi. Verrill himself synonymized the two genus names in 1899.

Mediaster

NOAA Okeanos Explorer · 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
GoniasteridaePBDB
Diet
detritivorePBDB, for Goniasteridae
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Goniasteridae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Goniasteridae
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Asteroidea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Goniasteridae

Time the record covers

At least 16 million years on record.

The record covers at least 72.2 Mya to 56 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 83.6 Mya to 48.07 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 1 of 2 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 2 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 2 occurrencesEocene84–83 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences83–82 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences82–81 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences81–79 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences79–78 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences78–77 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences77–76 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences76–74 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences74–73 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences73–72 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences57–56 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences56–55 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences55–54 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences54–52 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences52–51 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences51–50 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences50–49 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences49–47 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences72.2 Mya56 Mya84.3 Mya47.4 Mya

2 occurrences of Mediaster on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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

2 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

2 formations

Marnes de Foncouverte — 43.08°N, 2.50°EChico — 39.72°N, 121.83°W

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The named rock units Mediaster has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Mediaster and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Mediaster and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

13 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Mediaster, 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

Each of the 2 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 Mediaster

Credit
NOAA Okeanos Explorer
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Mediaster was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itGoniasteridae through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Stimpson 1857