Cnidaria

Searched as Cnidaria indet.. The Paleobiology Database treats Cnidaria as the accepted name.

Cnidaria is a phylum of animals containing over 11,000 species of aquatic invertebrates found both in freshwater and marine environments, including jellyfish, hydroids, sea anemones, corals and some of the smallest marine parasites. Their distinguishing features are a decentralized nerve net distributed throughout a gelatinous body, and the presence of cnidocytes or cnidoblasts, specialized cells with ejectable organelles used mainly for envenomation and capturing prey. Their bodies consist of mesoglea, a non-living, jelly-like substance, sandwiched between two layers of epithelium that are mostly one cell thick. Many cnidarian species can reproduce both sexually and asexually.

Cnidaria

Frédéric Ducarme · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
AnimaliaPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 536 million years on record.

The record covers at least 538.8 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 1000 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Cambrian — about 12 of 57 occurrencesOrdovician — about 3 of 57 occurrencesSilurian — about 5 of 57 occurrencesDevonian — about 11 of 57 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 7 of 57 occurrencesPermian — about 1 of 57 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 57 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 57 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 1 of 57 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 1 of 57 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 57 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 5 of 57 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 57 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 57 occurrencesPaleocene — about 2 of 57 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 57 occurrencesOligocene — about 1 of 57 occurrencesMiocene — about 1 of 57 occurrencesPliocene — about 0 of 57 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1 of 57 occurrences1020–986 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences986–952 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences952–918 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences918–884 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences884–850 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences850–816 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences816–782 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences782–748 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences748–714 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences714–680 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences680–646 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences646–612 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences612–578 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences578–544 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences544–510 Mya — about 8 occurrences510–476 Mya — about 5 occurrences476–442 Mya — about 3 occurrences442–408 Mya — about 11 occurrences408–374 Mya — about 4 occurrences374–340 Mya — about 3 occurrences340–306 Mya — about 5 occurrences272–238 Mya — about 1 occurrence238–204 Mya — about 1 occurrence204–170 Mya — about 1 occurrence170–136 Mya — about 5 occurrences136–102 Mya — about 1 occurrence68–34 Mya — about 3 occurrences34–0 Mya — about 3 occurrences538.8 Mya2.58 Mya1020 Mya0 Mya

57 occurrences of Cnidaria on record, most of them in the Cambrian. 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

57 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

36 formations

Balang — 28.42°N, 109.42°EPraha — 49.42°N, 15.86°EPraha — 49.90°N, 14.07°EUpper Tului — 40.10°N, 9.52°ELodo — 36.60°N, 120.69°WRoad River — 65.28°N, 135.70°WDoushantuo — 27.15°N, 107.41°EWeeks — 39.22°N, 113.40°WMilldale Limestone — 53.13°N, 1.53°WHopedale Limestones — 53.13°N, 1.53°WBee Low Limestones — 53.35°N, 1.80°WMonsal Dale Limestones — 53.13°N, 1.53°WEyam Limestones — 53.13°N, 1.53°WTrepassey and Fermeuse — 47.55°N, 52.67°WCabano — 47.71°N, 68.76°WWangyou — 24.45°N, 108.30°EGlenforslan — 34.09°S, 139.64°ETaozichong — 29.01°N, 110.51°EHetang — 28.74°N, 118.62°ECürten — 50.38°N, 6.70°EPin — 32.02°N, 78.05°EMjøsa — 60.73°N, 11.00°EDalan — 30.93°N, 51.42°EAshawq — 17.06°N, 54.42°ENavas de Estena — 39.52°N, 4.28°W

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The named rock units Cnidaria has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 12 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Cnidaria and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Cnidaria and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

1,948 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records at least 865 sites for Cnidaria, and this reads 240 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

34 references

Each of the 57 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. 22 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 content2

Picture of Cnidaria

Credit
Frédéric Ducarme
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC0 Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

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 itAnimalia through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Hatschek 1888)