Pavona varians
Pavona varians, also known by its common name corrugated coral, is a species from the genus Pavona. Pavona varians is a type of hermatypic coral commonly distributed across tropic environments. Distribution of the coral include the equatorial Indian and Pacific Ocean, and notably, not found in the Atlantic Ocean. Pavona varians have also been found to be distributed as North as the sea of Japan, in the Red Sea, and islands off the Pacific coast of Columbia and Costa Rica. Pavona varians are typically found an average of 45 feet below water on vertical surfaces in turbid, nutrient rich, water. Specifically, Pavona varians are found between crevices of the reef crest habitats and back reef habitats, including lagoons.

Stickpen · 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
- PavonaPBDB
- Diet
- microcarnivore, photosymbioticPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Life habit
- intermediate-level epifaunal, colonial, clonalPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Scleractinia
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Anthozoa
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Scleractinia
Time the record covers
At least 15 million years on record.
The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.
17 occurrences of Pavona varians on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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
17 occurrences- Miocene6%
- Pliocene9%
- Pleistocene62%
- Holocene24%
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
- Era Beds Formation1
- Sobe Formation · Ryukyu Group1
- Numa Formation1
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Pavona varians has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 14 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Pavona varians and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Pavona varians and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
211 taxa- Cyphastrea serailia5 sites
- Galaxea fascicularis5 sites
- Pocillopora damicornis5 sites
- Porites5 sites
- Dipsastraea favus4 sites
- Goniastrea retiformis4 sites
- Hydnophora exesa4 sites
- Leptoria phrygia4 sites
- Seriatopora hystrix4 sites
- Cyphastrea microphthalma3 sites
- Diploastrea heliopora3 sites
- Dipsastraea pallida3 sites
- Echinophyllia aspera3 sites
- Favites flexuosa3 sites
- Goniastrea australensis3 sites
- Goniastrea stelligera3 sites
- Leptastrea purpurea3 sites
- Lobophyllia hemprichii3 sites
- Montipora3 sites
- Pachyseris rugosa3 sites
- Platygyra3 sites
- Platygyra pini3 sites
- Plesiastrea versipora3 sites
- Pocillopora verrucosa3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Pavona varians, 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- Variation in deglacial coralgal assemblages and their paleoenvironmental significance: IODP Expedition 310, "Tahiti Sea Level"4
- The impact of the Mid-Pleistocene Transition on the composition of submerged reefs of the Maui Nui Complex, Hawaii1
- Variations in Pleistocene coral assemblages in space and time in southern and northern central Ryukyu Islands, Japan1
- Holocene reef accretion: southwest Molokai, Hawaii, USA1
- Model of fringing reef development in response to progressive sea level fall over the last 7000 years (Kikai-jima, Ryukyu Islands, Japan)1
- Arun Field Indonesia, North Sumatra Basin, Sumatra1
- Environmental control of Holocene changes to the world's most northern hermatypic coral outcrop1
- Subsidence and volcanism of the Haleakala Ridge, Hawaii1
- Coral species stability in reef corals of Papua New Guinea and the Indo-Pacific1
- Evidence of high sea level during isotope stage 5c in Queensland, Australia1
- Growth rate and age of coral reefs on the Pacific coast of Panama1
- Ricerche eseguite negli anni 1941-1942 sopra i Coralli delle scogliere emerse di Massaua e Gibuti [Research done between 1941 and 1942 on emersed coral reefs of Massawa and Djibouti]1
Each of the 17 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 content2
Picture of Pavona varians
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Stickpen
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution-NonCommercial
- Commercial use
- the licence does not allow it
MorphoSource 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 itPavona through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Verrill 1864