Vauxia

Vauxia is an extinct genus of demosponge that had a distinctive branching mode of growth. Each branch consisted of a network of strands. Vauxia also had a skeleton of spongin common to modern day sponges. Much like Choia and other sponges, Vauxia fed by extracting nutrients from the water.

Vauxia

Wilson44691 · Public Domain · 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
VauxiidaePBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB
Vision
blindPBDB, for Porifera

Time the record covers

At least 11 million years on record.

The record covers at least 516 Mya to 504.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 521 Mya to 497 Mya.

Cambrian — about 33 of 33 occurrencesCambrian522–521 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences521–520 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences520–519 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences519–518 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences518–517 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences517–517 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences517–516 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences516–515 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences515–514 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences514–513 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences513–512 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences512–512 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences510–509 Mya — about 4 occurrences509–508 Mya — about 4 occurrences508–507 Mya — about 4 occurrences507–507 Mya — about 4 occurrences507–506 Mya — about 5 occurrences506–505 Mya — about 2 occurrences505–504 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences504–503 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences503–502 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences502–502 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences502–501 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences501–500 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences500–499 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences499–498 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences498–497 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences497–497 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences516 Mya504.5 Mya521.5 Mya496.5 Mya

33 occurrences of Vauxia 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

33 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

8 formations

Burgess Shale — 51.44°N, 116.47°WBurgess Shale — 51.38°N, 116.43°WBurgess Shale — 51.33°N, 116.35°WBurgess Shale — 51.05°N, 115.85°WLead Bell Shale — 43.60°N, 112.04°WLead Bell Shale — 42.00°N, 112.00°WDuchesnay — 51.10°N, 115.95°WDuchesnay — 50.63°N, 115.60°WYuanshan — 24.81°N, 102.58°EWheeler — 39.50°N, 112.99°WBuen — 82.78°N, 42.22°WStephen — 51.17°N, 116.05°WQiongzhusi — 24.72°N, 102.95°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Vauxia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Vauxia and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Vauxia and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

302 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Vauxia, 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 33 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 Vauxia

Credit
Wilson44691
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Vauxia 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 itVauxiidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Walcott 1920