Polykrikos

Polykrikos is one of the genera of family Polykrikaceae that includes athecate pseudocolony-forming dinoflagellates. Polykrikos are characterized by a sophisticated ballistic apparatus, named the nematocyst-taeniocyst complex, which allows species to prey on a variety of organisms. Polykrikos have been found to regulate algal blooms as they feed on toxic dinoflagellates. However, there is also some data available on Polykrikos being toxic to fish.

Polykrikos

Mona Hoppenrath, Tsvetan R Bachvaroff, Sara M Handy, Charles F Delwiche and Brian S Leander · CC BY 2.0 · 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
PolykrikaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Dinoflagellata
Environment
freshwaterPBDB, for Dinophyceae

Time the record covers

At most 2.6 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pliocene — about 0 of 18 occurrencesPleistocene — about 18 of 18 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 18 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.0–1.8 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.6–1.5 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.5–1.4 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.4–1.3 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.3–1.2 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.2–1.1 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.1–1.0 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.0–924 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 0.8 occurrences719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences103 ka–0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences3.08 Mya0 Mya

18 occurrences of Polykrikos 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

18 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.

Polykrikos and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Polykrikos and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

17 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Polykrikos, 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

6 references

Each of the 18 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Polykrikos

Credit
Mona Hoppenrath, Tsvetan R Bachvaroff, Sara M Handy, Charles F Delwiche and Brian S Leander
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Polykrikos 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 itPolykrikaceae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bütschli 1873