Characeae

Characeae is a family of freshwater green algae in the order Charales, commonly known as stoneworts. They are also known as brittleworts or skunkweed, from the fragility of their lime-encrusted stems, and from the foul odor these produce when stepped on.

Characeae

Christian Fischer · 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
CharineaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Charophyta
Environment
freshwaterPBDB, for Charophyta

Time the record covers

At least 407 million years on record.

The record covers at least 410.62 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 413.02 Mya to 2.58 Mya.

Silurian — about 0 of 84 occurrencesDevonian — about 3 of 84 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 0 of 84 occurrencesPermian — about 2 of 84 occurrencesPermianEarly Triassic — about 0 of 84 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 84 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 1 of 84 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 84 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 84 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 6 of 84 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 4 of 84 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 14 of 84 occurrencesPaleocene — about 27 of 84 occurrencesEocene — about 12 of 84 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 84 occurrencesMiocene — about 9 of 84 occurrencesPliocene — about 6 of 84 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 84 occurrences421–407 Mya — about 2 occurrences407–393 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences393–379 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences267–253 Mya — about 2 occurrences253–239 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences239–225 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences225–211 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences211–197 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences168–154 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences154–140 Mya — about 6 occurrences140–126 Mya — about 1 occurrence126–112 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences112–98 Mya — about 2 occurrences98–84 Mya — about 3 occurrences84–70 Mya — about 6 occurrences70–56 Mya — about 31 occurrences56–42 Mya — about 8 occurrences42–28 Mya — about 6 occurrences28–14 Mya — about 4 occurrences14–0 Mya — about 11 occurrences410.62 Mya3.6 Mya421 Mya0 Mya

84 occurrences of Characeae on record, most of them in the Paleocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

84 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

24 formations

Nomogen — 43.53°N, 111.73°ETatrot — 30.73°N, 76.78°ETatrot — 30.81°N, 76.89°EHuchpayacu — 7.21°S, 74.95°WPozo — 7.34°S, 74.95°WSerra da Galga — 19.63°S, 47.45°WSerra da Galga — 19.63°S, 47.23°WHonglishan — 45.59°N, 87.83°EGlib Zegdou — 30.00°N, 4.00°WLower Freshwater Molasse — 46.88°N, 7.11°EDryden Flags — 57.34°N, 2.85°WKhuff — 20.00°N, 45.00°EKhuff — 26.50°N, 44.00°EParsora — 24.70°N, 87.40°EMorrison — 39.32°N, 110.69°WMorrison — 46.85°N, 108.79°WLower Bone Bed — 39.25°N, 8.68°WRenova — 45.20°N, 112.16°W"Caliza de Peguera" — 39.68°N, 2.83°ESüntel — 51.90°N, 10.48°EGrabowa — 50.67°N, 18.28°EDensuș-Ciula — 45.62°N, 22.78°EAl Jir — 30.94°N, 15.50°EPebas — 7.36°S, 74.96°WNemegt — 43.50°N, 101.05°EFort Crittenden — 31.67°N, 110.77°WAnderdon Limestone — 43.04°N, 80.86°WPiedra Clavada — 49.53°S, 71.48°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Characeae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 13 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Characeae and its relatives

Paleocene

Where Characeae and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.

Found in the same rock

812 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 40 sites for Characeae, 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

37 references

Each of the 84 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. 25 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 Characeae

Credit
Christian Fischer
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Characeae 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 itCharineae through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Agardh 1824