Thecocyathus

Thecocyathus

via iDigBio · CC BY · via iDigBio. 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
ThecocyathinaePBDB
Diet
microcarnivorePBDB, for Caryophylliidae
Life habit
low-level epifaunal, solitary, clonalPBDB, for Caryophylliidae
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB, for Caryophylliidae
Vision
blindPBDB, for Anthozoa
Environment
marinePBDB, for Scleractinia

Time the record covers

At least 371 million years on record.

The record covers at least 521 Mya to 149.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 525.5 Mya to 143.1 Mya.

Cambrian — about 20 of 48 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 0 of 48 occurrencesSilurian — about 0 of 48 occurrencesDevonian — about 0 of 48 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 0 of 48 occurrencesPermian — about 0 of 48 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 48 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 48 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 48 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 20 of 48 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 7 of 48 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 1 of 48 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 48 occurrences533–520 Mya — about 4 occurrences520–507 Mya — about 16 occurrences188–175 Mya — about 20 occurrences175–162 Mya — about 7 occurrences162–149 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences149–135 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences521 Mya149.2 Mya533 Mya135 Mya

48 occurrences of Thecocyathus on record, most of them in the Cambrian. 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

48 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

7 formations

Usa — 56.00°N, 88.00°EOpalinuston — 47.43°N, 8.15°EOpalinuston — 47.68°N, 8.52°EUst'kundat — 56.00°N, 88.00°EMarrat — 24.25°N, 46.08°EKhuzhirtai — 49.40°N, 136.38°ETurmiel — 40.43°N, 1.42°WBalakhtison — 53.77°N, 93.48°E

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The named rock units Thecocyathus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 18 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Thecocyathus and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Thecocyathus and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

276 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 47 sites for Thecocyathus, 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

10 references

Each of the 48 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 Thecocyathus

Source
iDigBio
Credit
via iDigBio
Licence
CC BY
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itThecocyathinae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Milne-Edwards and Haime 1848