Asteriacites

Asteriacites is a type of five-rayed trace fossil found in marine sedimentary rocks. It records the burrows of ophiuroid and asteroid sea stars on the sea floor. Asteriacites is found in European and American rocks, from the Ordovician period onwards, and is especially numerous in the Triassic and Jurassic systems.

Asteriacites

Photograph taken by Mark A. Wilson (Department of Geology, The College of Wooster). [1] · 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
AsteriacitidaePBDB

Time the record covers

At least 341 million years on record.

The record covers at least 382.31 Mya to 41.03 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 393.47 Mya to 37.71 Mya.

Devonian — about 1 of 15 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 0 of 15 occurrencesPermian — about 0 of 15 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 11 of 15 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 1 of 15 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 15 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 15 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 15 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 15 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 15 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 1 of 15 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 15 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 15 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 15 occurrences401–388 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences388–376 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences253–240 Mya — about 11 occurrences240–228 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences80–68 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences68–55 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences43–31 Mya — about 1 occurrence382.31 Mya41.03 Mya401 Mya31 Mya

15 occurrences of Asteriacites on record, most of them in the Early Triassic. 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

15 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

6 formations

Moenkopi — 36.60°N, 114.57°WMoenkopi — 36.55°N, 114.61°WWerfen — 46.38°N, 11.85°EPimenteira — 9.55°S, 48.23°WTalara — 4.52°S, 81.30°WCalcaire Nankin — 43.16°N, 0.89°EThaynes — 40.12°N, 111.65°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Asteriacites has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Asteriacites and its relatives

Early Triassic

Where Asteriacites and its relatives were recorded in the Early Triassic.

Found in the same rock

22 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Asteriacites, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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 15 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 content2

Picture of Asteriacites

Credit
Photograph taken by Mark A. Wilson (Department of Geology, The College of Wooster). [1]
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itAsteriacitidae through timeFormations of the Early TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. von Schlotheim 1820