Bothriocidaris

Bothriocidaris is an extinct genus of echinoid from the Ordovician. It grew to 1.6 centimetres (0.63 in) in size and fed on plankton.

Bothriocidaris

Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 8, Slice 10. , available freely at Project Gutenberg · 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
BothriocidaridaePBDB
Diet
detritivorePBDB, for Bothriocidaroida
Life habit
low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Bothriocidaroida
Motility
slow-movingPBDB, for Bothriocidaroida
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Echinoidea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Echinodermata

Time the record covers

At least 3.2 million years on record.

The record covers at least 452.8 Mya to 449.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 458 Mya to 445.5 Mya.

Ordovician — about 14 of 14 occurrencesOrdovician458–458 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences458–457 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences457–457 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences457–456 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences456–456 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences456–455 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences455–455 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences455–454 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences454–454 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences454–454 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences454–453 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences453–453 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences453–452 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences452–452 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences452–451 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences451–451 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences451–450 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences450–450 Mya — about 2 occurrences450–450 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences450–449 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences449–449 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences449–448 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences448–448 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences448–447 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences447–447 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences447–446 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences446–446 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences446–445 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences452.8 Mya449.6 Mya458.5 Mya445 Mya

14 occurrences of Bothriocidaris 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

14 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

11 formations

Fort Atkinson — 43.13°N, 91.88°WPlatteville — 44.00°N, 92.00°WMifflin — 42.00°N, 90.50°WPecatonica — 42.00°N, 90.50°WFort Atkinson Limestone — 42.00°N, 93.50°WBrainard Shale — 42.00°N, 90.50°WBromide — 34.00°N, 97.00°WRagavere — 59.00°N, 26.00°EHaljala Erratics — 52.52°N, 6.08°EGrand Detour — 41.87°N, 89.45°WAluvere — 59.37°N, 24.50°E

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The named rock units Bothriocidaris has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Bothriocidaris and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Bothriocidaris and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

163 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 14 sites for Bothriocidaris, 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

9 references

Each of the 14 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 Bothriocidaris

Credit
Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 8, Slice 10. , available freely at Project Gutenberg
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Bothriocidaris 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 itBothriocidaridae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. d'Eichwald 1859