Arborea

Arborea is a genus of petalonamid that was formerly considered as being synonymous with Charniodiscus. It consisted of a frond-like body 3–4 inches (7.6–10.2 cm) long that was attached to the substrate via a holdfast that possessed many concentric rings on it. Species which were thought to have been within the genus Charniodiscus are now being interpreted as belonging to the genus Arborea with the latter of which being considered synonymous with Charniodiscus. A. arborea was first described from South Australia, and is the most abundant petalonamid in the Flinders Ranges. The genus currently contains five known species with three of them originally being species of Charniodiscus; the species include A. arborea, A. denticulata, A. opposita and A. spinosa. The fifth species, A. elegans, was found in the Mistaken Point Formation and was named in 2026. The formerly included species A. longa was in 2023 transferred to its own genus, Akrophyllas.

A picture published with the record for Arborea. What it shows has not been checked.

Rosse-Guillevic, Olschewski & McIlroy · 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
ArboreomorphaPBDB
Diet
osmotroph, suspension feederPBDB
Life habit
upper-level epifaunalPBDB
Motility
stationaryPBDB
Environment
marinePBDB

Time the record covers

At most 97 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 635 Mya and 538.8 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Cambrian — about 0 of 29 occurrences637–634 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences634–630 Mya — about 1 occurrence630–627 Mya — about 1 occurrence627–624 Mya — about 1 occurrence624–620 Mya — about 1 occurrence620–617 Mya — about 1 occurrence617–614 Mya — about 1 occurrence614–610 Mya — about 1 occurrence610–607 Mya — about 1 occurrence607–604 Mya — about 1 occurrence604–600 Mya — about 1 occurrence600–597 Mya — about 1 occurrence597–594 Mya — about 1 occurrence594–590 Mya — about 1 occurrence590–587 Mya — about 1 occurrence587–584 Mya — about 1 occurrence584–580 Mya — about 1 occurrence580–577 Mya — about 1 occurrence577–574 Mya — about 1 occurrence574–570 Mya — about 1 occurrence570–567 Mya — about 1 occurrence567–564 Mya — about 1 occurrence564–560 Mya — about 1 occurrence560–557 Mya — about 1 occurrence557–554 Mya — about 1 occurrence554–550 Mya — about 1 occurrence550–547 Mya — about 1 occurrence547–544 Mya — about 1 occurrence544–540 Mya — about 1 occurrence540–537 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences637 Mya537 Mya

29 occurrences of Arborea on record. 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

29 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

10 formations

Dengying — 30.79°N, 111.05°ERawnsley Quartzite — 31.42°S, 138.71°ERawnsley Quartzite — 30.85°S, 138.13°ERawnsley Quartzite — 31.32°S, 138.50°EFermeuse — 48.48°N, 53.10°WFermeuse — 48.53°N, 52.90°WFermeuse — 47.65°N, 53.22°WMistaken Point — 48.53°N, 52.90°WMistaken Point — 46.62°N, 53.17°WBlueflower — 65.98°N, 134.20°WTrepassey — 46.63°N, 53.16°WTrepassey — 48.53°N, 53.05°WArumbera — 23.70°S, 133.88°EKhatyspyt — 71.13°N, 123.82°EContra Fogo Sandstone — 4.00°S, 40.67°WBriscal — 46.64°N, 53.22°W

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

Found in the same rock

98 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 22 sites for Arborea, 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 29 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 content1

Picture of Arborea

Credit
Rosse-Guillevic, Olschewski & McIlroy
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Arborea was found in Sketchfab.

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 itArboreomorpha through time

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Glaessner and Wade 1966