Pentasteria

Pentasteria is an extinct genus of sea star that lived from the Early Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous. Its fossils have been found in Europe.

Pentasteria

Daderot · CC0 · 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
AstropectinidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Astropectinidae
Life habit
semi-infaunal, solitaryPBDB, for Astropectinidae
Motility
slow-movingPBDB, for Astropectinidae
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Asteroidea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Astropectinidae

Time the record covers

At least 79 million years on record.

The record covers at least 180.4 Mya to 100.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 182.9 Mya to 66 Mya.

Early Jurassic — about 1 of 27 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 7 of 27 occurrencesMiddle JurassicLate Jurassic — about 16 of 27 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 2 of 27 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 1 of 27 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 27 occurrences185–181 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences181–177 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences169–165 Mya — about 2 occurrences165–161 Mya — about 5 occurrences161–157 Mya — about 8 occurrences157–153 Mya — about 2 occurrences153–149 Mya — about 3 occurrences149–145 Mya — about 3 occurrences141–137 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences137–133 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences133–129 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences129–124 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences104–100 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences100–96 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences96–92 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences92–88 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences88–84 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences84–80 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences80–76 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences76–72 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences72–68 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences68–64 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences180.4 Mya100.5 Mya185 Mya64 Mya

27 occurrences of Pentasteria 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

27 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

12 formations

Effinger Schichten — 47.26°N, 7.52°EPapierschiefer — 48.87°N, 11.77°EGünsberg-Schichten — 47.33°N, 7.60°EEffingerschichten — 47.27°N, 7.52°ECouches à Spérites — 47.98°N, 4.85°EMarnes de Latrecey — 47.98°N, 4.85°ECalcaire de Fontanil — 45.37°N, 5.83°ECouche à Planulites koenigi — 49.13°N, 0.17°WMarnes de Dives — 49.34°N, 0.03°EMassenkalk — 48.89°N, 11.94°E? — 51.15°S, 72.38°WOrnatenton — 52.28°N, 8.76°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Pentasteria has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 12 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Pentasteria and its relatives

Late Jurassic

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

Found in the same rock

500 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 27 sites for Pentasteria, 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

23 references

Each of the 27 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. 11 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 Pentasteria

Credit
Daderot
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Pentasteria 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 itAstropectinidae through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Valette 1929