Actinoptychus

Actinoptychus is a genus of diatoms belonging to the family Heliopeltaceae.

Actinoptychus

Anatoly Mikhaltsov · CC BY 4.0 · 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
HeliopeltaceaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Bacillariophyceae
Environment
marine,brackish,freshwaterPBDB, for Bacillariophyceae

Time the record covers

At least 72 million years on record.

The record covers at least 72.2 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 83.6 Mya to 0 Mya.

Late Cretaceous — about 68 of 552 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 12 of 552 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 2 of 552 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 6 of 552 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 135 of 552 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 101 of 552 occurrencesPleistocene — about 227 of 552 occurrences85–82 Mya — about 7 occurrences82–80 Mya — about 16 occurrences80–77 Mya — about 16 occurrences77–74 Mya — about 16 occurrences74–71 Mya — about 10 occurrences71–68 Mya — about 2 occurrences68–65 Mya — about 2 occurrences65–63 Mya — about 3 occurrences63–60 Mya — about 3 occurrences60–57 Mya — about 3 occurrences57–54 Mya — about 1 occurrence48–45 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences45–43 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences43–40 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences34–31 Mya — about 2 occurrences31–28 Mya — about 2 occurrences28–26 Mya — about 1 occurrence26–23 Mya — about 1 occurrence23–20 Mya — about 11 occurrences20–17 Mya — about 11 occurrences17–14 Mya — about 18 occurrences14–11 Mya — about 26 occurrences11–8.5 Mya — about 28 occurrences8.5–5.7 Mya — about 34 occurrences5.7–2.8 Mya — about 96 occurrences2.8–0 Mya — about 239 occurrences72.2 Mya129 ka85 Mya0 Mya

552 occurrences of Actinoptychus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

552 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

13 formations

Mason River — 69.46°N, 126.97°WLopez de Bertodano — 64.25°S, 56.75°WSobral — 64.25°S, 56.75°WCalvert — 37.93°N, 77.51°WCalvert — 37.71°N, 76.97°WCalvert — 37.60°N, 77.05°WFormación Coquimbo — 29.08°S, 71.46°WFormación Coquimbo — 30.32°S, 71.52°WKanguk — 79.00°N, 85.37°WPungo River — 35.40°N, 76.80°WRosarito Beach — 32.12°N, 116.80°WChoptank — 38.44°N, 76.44°WKylan — 59.92°N, 164.78°EEmbetsu — 44.35°N, 141.73°ESmoking Hills — 69.46°N, 126.97°WDaineji — 37.37°N, 141.04°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Actinoptychus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 453 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Actinoptychus and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Actinoptychus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

544 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 515 sites for Actinoptychus, 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

52 references

Each of the 552 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. 40 further references are not listed. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Actinoptychus

Credit
Anatoly Mikhaltsov
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Actinoptychus 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 itHeliopeltaceae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ehrenberg 1843