Stigmaria

Stigmaria is a form taxon for common fossils found in Carboniferous rocks. They represent the underground rooting structures of arborescent lycophytes such as Sigillaria and Lepidodendron under the order Lepidodendrales.

A picture published with the record for Stigmaria. What it shows has not been checked.

Uncredited · 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
PlantaePBDB

Time the record covers

At least 99 million years on record.

The record covers at least 358.86 Mya to 259.857 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 382.31 Mya to 254.14 Mya.

Devonian — about 1 of 116 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 79 of 116 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 36 of 116 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 116 occurrences385–380 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences380–376 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences376–372 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences372–367 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences367–363 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences363–358 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences358–354 Mya — about 3 occurrences354–349 Mya — about 3 occurrences349–345 Mya — about 3 occurrences345–340 Mya — about 4 occurrences340–336 Mya — about 8 occurrences336–332 Mya — about 8 occurrences332–327 Mya — about 6 occurrences327–323 Mya — about 5 occurrences323–318 Mya — about 8 occurrences318–314 Mya — about 19 occurrences314–309 Mya — about 4 occurrences309–305 Mya — about 4 occurrences305–300 Mya — about 2 occurrences300–296 Mya — about 4 occurrences296–292 Mya — about 5 occurrences292–287 Mya — about 7 occurrences287–283 Mya — about 7 occurrences283–278 Mya — about 2 occurrences278–274 Mya — about 2 occurrences274–269 Mya — about 3 occurrences269–265 Mya — about 3 occurrences265–260 Mya — about 2 occurrences260–256 Mya — about 2 occurrences256–252 Mya — about 1 occurrence358.86 Mya259.857 Mya385 Mya252 Mya

116 occurrences of Stigmaria on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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

116 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

43 formations

Taiyuan — 37.50°N, 105.20°ETaiyuan — 37.50°N, 114.60°ETaiyuan — 40.00°N, 116.20°ETaiyuan — 39.70°N, 106.80°ETaiyuan — 34.20°N, 113.50°ETaiyuan — 41.20°N, 123.80°ETaiyuan — 41.60°N, 119.70°ETaiyuan — 38.80°N, 105.60°EShanxi — 38.80°N, 99.60°EShanxi — 38.50°N, 102.20°EShanxi — 35.70°N, 106.60°EShanxi — 39.40°N, 111.00°EChangsong — 37.60°N, 129.00°EChangsong — 37.60°N, 128.50°EChangsong — 37.20°N, 129.00°ETar Springs — 37.00°N, 88.00°WTar Springs — 37.45°N, 88.85°WLongtan — 30.80°N, 120.20°ELongtan — 31.30°N, 120.60°EQixia — 30.50°N, 111.20°EQixia — 29.40°N, 110.20°ETongzhiyan — 25.20°N, 117.10°ETongzhiyan — 25.80°N, 116.70°ELower Coal-bearing — 39.70°N, 126.20°ELower Coal-bearing — 39.40°N, 126.90°EFoel — 53.00°N, 3.00°WMospyne — 48.24°N, 39.34°EPetersburg — 38.10°N, 87.18°WRoaring Creek Coal — 39.00°N, 87.00°WShelburn — 39.28°N, 87.53°WMinto — 46.08°N, 66.08°WGreat Blue — 40.30°N, 112.22°WClyde Plateau Volcanic — 55.71°N, 5.21°WHardinsburg — 37.38°N, 88.78°WDegonia — 37.47°N, 88.75°WWaltersburg — 37.42°N, 88.82°WManning Canyon Shale — 40.28°N, 112.15°WAlacaagzi — 41.45°N, 39.82°EJoggins — 45.70°N, 64.45°WMaoshan — 41.00°N, 118.90°EXiaowangzhuang — 39.90°N, 119.60°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Stigmaria has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 19 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 54 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Stigmaria and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Stigmaria and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

524 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 101 sites for Stigmaria, 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

55 references

Each of the 116 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. 43 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 Stigmaria

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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

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 itPlantae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Brongniart 1822