Chiridota
Chiridota is a genus of sea cucumbers in the family Chiridotidae. It is an extant genus but some fossil species are known.

Image courtesy of Aquapix and Expedition to the Deep Slope 2007 · 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
- SynaptidaePBDB
- Diet
- detritivorePBDB, for Apodida
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Apodida
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Apodida
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Holothuroidea
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Echinodermata
Time the record covers
At least 275 million years on record.
The record covers at least 323.6 Mya to 48.07 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 326.9 Mya to 41.03 Mya.
2 occurrences of Chiridota on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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
2 occurrences- Carboniferous50%
- Eocene50%
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
1 formation
- Upper Limestone Formation · Clackmannan Group1
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The named rock units Chiridota 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.
Chiridota and its relatives
CarboniferousWhere Chiridota and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.
Found in the same rock
49 taxa- Acirsa1 site
- Anthracoceras glabrum1 site
- Anthracoceras paucilobum1 site
- Calclamnella irregularis1 site
- Cheirodota traquairii1 site
- Chiridotites lanceolatus1 site
- Cluthoceras1 site
- Cluthoceras truemani1 site
- Crassatella plumbea1 site
- Croneisites laevigatus1 site
- Diameza (Miniseraphs)1 site
- Eucypraedia parisiensis1 site
- Eucypraedia sophia1 site
- Eumorphoceras bisulcatum1 site
- Glabrocingulum armstrongi1 site
- Harpa mutica1 site
- Harpula1 site
- Hypselentoma welleri1 site
- Melanella1 site
- Monocirsus carinulatus1 site
- Myriotrochites operculum1 site
- Pachycrommium1 site
- Paraseraphs1 site
- Pileolus (Tomostoma)1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Chiridota, 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
2 references- Seconde note sur les holothuridées du Calcaire Grossier1
- On the presence of scattered skeletal remains of Holothuroidea in the Carboniferous limestone series of Scotland1
Each of the 2 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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Chiridota
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Image courtesy of Aquapix and Expedition to the Deep Slope 2007
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Chiridota 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Chiridota”
- 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 itSynaptidae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Eschscholtz 1829