Amecystis

Amecystis is a Palaeozoic genus of rhombiferan echinoderm similar to Pleurocystites, lacking rhombs.

Amecystis

Jonathan Chen · CC BY-SA 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
PleurocystitinaePBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB, for Rhombifera
Life habit
intermediate-level epifaunalPBDB, for Rhombifera
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB, for Rhombifera
Vision
blindPBDB, for Rhombifera
Environment
marinePBDB, for Echinodermata

Time the record covers

At least 2.8 million years on record.

The record covers at least 453.8 Mya to 451 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 457.3 Mya to 445.2 Mya.

Ordovician — about 18 of 18 occurrencesOrdovician457–457 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences457–456 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences456–456 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences456–456 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences456–455 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences455–455 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences455–454 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences454–454 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences454–453 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences453–453 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences453–453 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences453–452 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences452–452 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences452–451 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences451–451 Mya — about 2 occurrences451–450 Mya — about 3 occurrences450–450 Mya — about 2 occurrences450–450 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences450–449 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences449–449 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences449–448 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences448–448 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences448–447 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences447–447 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences447–446 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences446–446 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences446–446 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences446–445 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences453.8 Mya451 Mya457.8 Mya444.7 Mya

18 occurrences of Amecystis 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

18 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

16 formations

Dubuque — 44.00°N, 92.00°WDubuque — 42.00°N, 90.50°WIon — 42.00°N, 90.50°WDecorah Shale — 44.00°N, 92.00°WStewartville — 44.00°N, 92.00°WQuimbys Mill — 42.00°N, 90.50°WSpechts Ferry — 42.00°N, 90.50°WGuttenberg — 42.00°N, 90.50°WWise Lake — 42.00°N, 90.50°WEdinburg — 39.00°N, 78.40°WBobcaygeon — 44.58°N, 78.97°WDecorah — 44.98°N, 93.27°WLebanon Limestone — 35.14°N, 87.05°WPont-Rouge — 46.75°N, 71.70°WLexington Limestone — 37.83°N, 84.60°WChambersburg Limestone — 39.84°N, 77.73°WBenbolt — 36.35°N, 83.42°W

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

Amecystis and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Amecystis and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

59 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Amecystis, 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

5 references

Each of the 18 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 Amecystis

Credit
Jonathan Chen
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

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 itPleurocystitinae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ulrich and Kirk 1921