Urasterella

Urasterella is an extinct genus of sea stars that lived from the Ordovician to the Devonian. Its fossils are known from Europe, North America and southern Africa.

Urasterella

Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
UrasterellidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Urasterellidae
Life habit
epifaunal, solitaryPBDB, for Urasterellidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Urasterellidae
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Asteroidea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Echinodermata

Time the record covers

At least 58 million years on record.

The record covers at least 469.1 Mya to 410.62 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 471.3 Mya to 399.5 Mya.

Ordovician — about 14 of 22 occurrencesOrdovicianSilurian — about 5 of 22 occurrencesSilurianDevonian — about 3 of 22 occurrencesDevonian473–470 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences470–468 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences458–455 Mya — about 2 occurrences455–453 Mya — about 2 occurrences453–450 Mya — about 3 occurrences450–448 Mya — about 2 occurrences448–445 Mya — about 2 occurrences445–443 Mya — about 1 occurrence443–440 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences440–438 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences438–435 Mya — about 1 occurrence435–433 Mya — about 1 occurrence433–430 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences430–428 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences428–425 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences425–423 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences423–420 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences420–418 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences413–411 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences411–408 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences408–406 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences406–403 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences403–401 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences401–398 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences469.1 Mya410.62 Mya473 Mya398 Mya

22 occurrences of Urasterella on record, most of them in the Ordovician. 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

22 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

14 formations

Bromide — 34.00°N, 97.00°WBromide — 34.45°N, 97.17°WBromide — 34.07°N, 97.17°WBromide — 34.03°N, 97.17°WHunsrück Slate — 49.83°N, 7.37°EWaynesville — 39.00°N, 84.00°WLiberty — 39.00°N, 84.00°WWhitewater — 39.00°N, 84.00°WElkhorn — 39.00°N, 84.00°WPlatteville — 44.00°N, 92.00°WMifflin — 42.00°N, 90.50°WMartinsburg — 40.48°N, 76.53°WSouth Threave — 55.29°N, 4.76°WLower Leintwardine — 52.37°N, 2.88°WReservoir — 55.80°N, 3.33°WHull — 45.41°N, 75.73°WVaughn Gulch — 36.82°N, 118.08°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Urasterella has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Urasterella and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Urasterella and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

579 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 19 sites for Urasterella, 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

Each of the 22 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 Urasterella

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

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 itUrasterellidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. McCoy 1851