Acritarcha

Acritarchs are organic microfossils, known from the Archean eon of the Precambrian to the present. The classification is a catch all term used to refer to any organic microfossils that cannot be assigned to other groups. Their diversity reflects major ecological events such as the appearance of predation and the Cambrian explosion. Many acritarchs likely represent resting cysts of single-celled marine phytoplanktonic algae, similar to those produced by living dinoflagellates.

A picture published with the record for Acritarcha. 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
Also called
acritarchsPBDB
Sits inside
EukaryotaPBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB
Environment
marinePBDB

Time the record covers

At least 1799 million years on record.

The record covers at least 1800 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2050 Mya to 0 Mya.

Cambrian — about 92 of 1404 occurrencesOrdovician — about 87 of 1404 occurrencesSilurian — about 101 of 1404 occurrencesDevonian — about 39 of 1404 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 0 of 1404 occurrencesPermian — about 129 of 1404 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 113 of 1404 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 41 of 1404 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 3 of 1404 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 3 of 1404 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 14 of 1404 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 12 of 1404 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 76 of 1404 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 82 of 1404 occurrencesPaleocene — about 32 of 1404 occurrencesEocene — about 30 of 1404 occurrencesOligocene — about 21 of 1404 occurrencesMiocene — about 90 of 1404 occurrencesPliocene — about 37 of 1404 occurrencesPleistocene — about 26 of 1404 occurrences2091–2021 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2021–1952 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1952–1882 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1882–1812 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1812–1743 Mya — about 9 occurrences1743–1673 Mya — about 11 occurrences1673–1603 Mya — about 11 occurrences1603–1533 Mya — about 4 occurrences1533–1464 Mya — about 4 occurrences1464–1394 Mya — about 4 occurrences1394–1324 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1324–1255 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1255–1185 Mya — about 1 occurrence1185–1115 Mya — about 4 occurrences1115–1046 Mya — about 4 occurrences1046–976 Mya — about 16 occurrences976–906 Mya — about 37 occurrences906–836 Mya — about 37 occurrences836–767 Mya — about 37 occurrences767–697 Mya — about 28 occurrences697–627 Mya — about 20 occurrences627–558 Mya — about 114 occurrences558–488 Mya — about 122 occurrences488–418 Mya — about 189 occurrences418–349 Mya — about 39 occurrences349–279 Mya — about 18 occurrences279–209 Mya — about 265 occurrences209–139 Mya — about 32 occurrences139–70 Mya — about 133 occurrences70–0 Mya — about 263 occurrences1800 Mya11.7 ka2091 Mya0 Mya

1,404 occurrences of Acritarcha on record, most of them in the Permian. 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

1,404 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

200 formations

Tokammane — 79.18°N, 17.50°ETokammane — 78.82°N, 17.87°ETokammane — 78.95°N, 18.33°ELeetse — 59.87°N, 31.43°EZechstein Limestone — 50.83°N, 20.67°EAlinya — 28.43°S, 132.39°ENyborg — 70.56°N, 28.08°ENyborg — 70.55°N, 28.04°EUra — 60.25°N, 117.08°EUra — 60.22°N, 116.93°EGaleros — 36.14°N, 111.83°WGaleros — 36.15°N, 111.83°WGaleros — 36.16°N, 111.86°WKhkoma — 67.04°N, 103.77°EZafir — 31.67°N, 34.83°EZafir — 31.60°N, 34.70°EHidegkut — 46.88°N, 17.61°EHidegkut — 47.34°N, 17.68°EKhaastyrka — 67.35°N, 104.04°EKhaastyrka — 67.32°N, 103.85°EKhaastyrka — 67.33°N, 104.85°EKhaastyrka — 67.34°N, 103.88°EJagüel — 38.84°S, 67.88°WJagüel — 36.21°S, 69.46°WMonte Chico — 51.59°S, 72.41°WWangfenggang — 32.61°N, 116.90°EKhamaka — 61.05°N, 110.92°EKhamaka — 60.32°N, 111.90°EKhamaka — 60.77°N, 112.35°EKhamaka — 60.22°N, 112.33°ETalme Yafe — 31.65°N, 34.61°ERa'af — 31.67°N, 34.83°ERa'af — 31.60°N, 34.70°ERa'af — 31.67°N, 34.58°EAgua Doce — 3.69°S, 44.56°WKotlin — 59.09°N, 27.17°ESuket Shale — 24.45°N, 75.45°EKatrol — 23.30°N, 69.66°EUpper Visingsö — 58.02°N, 14.32°EBromide — 34.00°N, 97.00°WKingscourt Gypsum — 53.90°N, 6.79°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Acritarcha has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 176 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 437 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Acritarcha and its relatives

Permian

Where Acritarcha and its relatives were recorded in the Permian.

Found in the same rock

1,618 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 628 sites for Acritarcha, and this reads 240 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

168 references

Each of the 1,404 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. 156 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 content1

Picture of Acritarcha

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

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

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 itEukaryota through timeFormations of the PermianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Evitt 1963