Chthamalus fragilis

Chthamalus fragilis is a small gray barnacle found in the upper intertidal zone of the northwestern Atlantic Ocean, from approximately Cape Cod southward to Florida and into the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. It is also commonly known as little grey barnacle. The species is believed to have been distributed only as far northward as North Carolina or Virginia until the late 1800s, when it was noticed along the Massachusetts coast. The species may have expanded its range naturally or been introduced to New England through anthropogenic activities. Chthamalus fragilis is unusual in that it often recruits to stems of Spartina alterniflora.

Chthamalus fragilis

Yihui Zhang · 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
ChthamalusPBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB, for Cirripedia
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Cirripedia
Motility
stationary, attached, epibiontPBDB, for Cirripedia
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Cirripedia

Time the record covers

At most 118 thousand years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 11.7 ka, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 1 of 1 occurrencePleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 1 occurrence147 ka–126 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126 ka–105 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences105 ka–84 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences84 ka–63 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences63 ka–42 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences42 ka–21 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences21 ka–0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences629 ka0 Mya

1 occurrence of Chthamalus fragilis 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

1 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.

Chthamalus fragilis and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Chthamalus fragilis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

18 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Chthamalus fragilis, 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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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 Chthamalus fragilis

Credit
Yihui Zhang
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Chthamalus fragilis was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

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 itChthamalus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Darwin 1854