Fellaster
Fellaster is a genus of echinoderms belonging to the family Clypeasteridae.

Roger Grace · CC BY 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
- ArachnoidinaePBDB
- Diet
- detritivorePBDB, for Clypeasteroida
- Life habit
- semi-infaunalPBDB, for Clypeasteroida
- Motility
- slow-movingPBDB, for Clypeasteroida
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Echinoidea
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Echinodermata
Time the record covers
At least 2.8 million years on record.
The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 774 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 129 ka.
3 occurrences of Fellaster on record, most of them in the Pliocene. 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
3 occurrences- Pliocene67%
- Pleistocene33%
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
2 formations
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Fellaster has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Fellaster and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Fellaster and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
81 taxa- Amalda (Baryspira)3 sites
- Crepidula3 sites
- Diplodonta zelandica3 sites
- Tawera3 sites
- Austrovenus2 sites
- Barytellina2 sites
- Bassina2 sites
- Chlamys (Phialopecten)2 sites
- Cominella (Cominella)2 sites
- Cominella (Josepha)2 sites
- Diloma2 sites
- Dosinia (Raina)2 sites
- Eumarcia2 sites
- Glycymerita2 sites
- Laternula2 sites
- Macomona2 sites
- Mactra2 sites
- Mactra (Cyclomactra)2 sites
- Paphies2 sites
- Penion2 sites
- Perna2 sites
- Spisula2 sites
- Struthiolaria2 sites
- Trochus (Coelotrochus)2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Fellaster, 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- Cenozoic Mollusca of New Zealand2
- The Mid Pleistocene Waiomio Shellbed (Castlecliffian, ca. 550-600 ky), Wanganui Basin, New Zealand1
Each of the 3 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. 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 Fellaster
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Roger Grace
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Photogrammetry
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- fellaster zelandiae · MST:PALEO:MST-SP-10005
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Fellaster”
- 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 itArachnoidinae through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Durham 1955