Ctenophora

Ctenophora or ctenophores, commonly known as comb jellies, is a basal phylum of marine invertebrate animals notable for their unique aquatic locomotion using groups of cilia. They inhabit marine habitats worldwide, with 186 recognised living species.

Ctenophora

Orin Zebest · CC BY 2.0 · 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
Also called
comb jellyPBDB
Sits inside
TriploblasticaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
nektonicPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB

Time the record covers

At least 488 million years on record.

The record covers at least 516 Mya to 27.3 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 538.8 Mya to 23.04 Mya.

Cambrian — about 40 of 44 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 0 of 44 occurrencesSilurian — about 0 of 44 occurrencesDevonian — about 2 of 44 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 0 of 44 occurrencesPermian — about 0 of 44 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 44 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 44 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 44 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 44 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 44 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 44 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 44 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 44 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 44 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 44 occurrencesOligocene — about 2 of 44 occurrencesMiocene — about 0 of 44 occurrences549–531 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences531–513 Mya — about 25 occurrences513–495 Mya — about 14 occurrences424–406 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences406–388 Mya — about 1 occurrence31–13 Mya — about 2 occurrences516 Mya27.3 Mya549 Mya13 Mya

44 occurrences of Ctenophora on record, most of them in the Cambrian. 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

44 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

12 formations

Yuanshan — 24.81°N, 102.58°EYuanshan — 24.84°N, 102.41°EYuanshan — 24.75°N, 102.90°EHeilinpu — 24.69°N, 102.49°EHeilinpu — 24.79°N, 102.60°EHeilinpu — 24.64°N, 102.97°EHeilinpu — 25.24°N, 102.30°EBurgess Shale — 51.44°N, 116.47°WBurgess Shale — 51.39°N, 116.43°WBalang — 28.42°N, 109.42°EHunsrück Slate — 49.83°N, 7.37°EHunsrück Slate — 49.89°N, 7.47°EYu'anshan — 24.77°N, 102.58°EMarjum — 39.22°N, 113.39°WShuijingtuo — 30.50°N, 111.16°EChiungchussu — 24.79°N, 102.60°EChiungchussu — 24.70°N, 102.49°ERott — 50.75°N, 7.26°EStephen — 51.17°N, 116.08°WWeeks — 39.22°N, 113.40°W

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The named rock units Ctenophora 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.

Ctenophora and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Ctenophora and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

878 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 27 sites for Ctenophora, 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

17 references

Each of the 44 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. 5 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 Ctenophora

Credit
Orin Zebest
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Problepsis ctenophora · mzh:ms:NL.27

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 itTriploblastica through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Eschscholtz 1829