Bacteriastrum
Bacteriastrum is a genus of diatoms in family Chaetocerotaceae. There are more than 30 described species in genus Bacteriastrum, but many of these are not currently accepted, and new species are still added to the genus. The type species for the genus is Bacteriastrum furcatum Shadbolt.

Rex shock ( talk )Richard Andre Ingebrigtsen, Department of Aquatic Biosciences, NCFS, University of Tromsø · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
- ChaetocerotaceaePBDB
- Diet
- "photoautotroph"PBDB, for Bacillariophyceae
- Environment
- marine,brackish,freshwaterPBDB, for Bacillariophyceae
Time the record covers
At least 5.3 million years on record.
The record covers at least 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.
27 occurrences of Bacteriastrum 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
27 occurrences- Miocene11%
- Pliocene9%
- Pleistocene75%
- Holocene5%
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.
Bacteriastrum and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Bacteriastrum and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
61 taxa- Thalassionema22 sites
- Azpeitia18 sites
- Chaetoceros16 sites
- Actinocyclus14 sites
- Thalassiosira14 sites
- Rhizosolenia13 sites
- Cyclotella11 sites
- Fragilariopsis11 sites
- Nitzschia11 sites
- Alveus10 sites
- Diploneis10 sites
- Shionodiscus10 sites
- Paralia sulcata9 sites
- Thalassiothrix longissima8 sites
- Actinocyclus ellipticus7 sites
- Actinoptychus senarius7 sites
- Ethmodiscus7 sites
- Triceratium7 sites
- Hemidiscus6 sites
- Coscinodiscus5 sites
- Coscinodiscus radiatus5 sites
- Roperia5 sites
- Asteromphalus4 sites
- Rossiella4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 25 sites for Bacteriastrum, 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
12 references- Site U14457
- Site U15053
- Site U14743
- Site U13373
- Site U15012
- Site U14462
- Site U14482
- Site U15041
- Site U14791
- Site U14471
- Site U14561
- Site U14571
Each of the 27 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. 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 Bacteriastrum
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Rex shock ( talk )Richard Andre Ingebrigtsen, Department of Aquatic Biosciences, NCFS, University of Tromsø
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Bacteriastrum 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 itChaetocerotaceae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Shadbolt 1854