Halimeda tuna
Halimeda tuna is a species of calcareous green seaweed in the order Bryopsidales. It is found on reefs in the Atlantic Ocean, the Indo-Pacific region and the Mediterranean Sea. Halimeda tuna is the type species of the genus Halimeda and the type locality is the Mediterranean Sea. The specific name "tuna" comes from the Taíno language, meaning "cactus" and referring to the resemblance of the thallus to the growth form of an Opuntia cactus.

Diego Delso · 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
- HalimedaPBDB
- Diet
- "photoautotroph"PBDB, for Halimedaceae
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Halimedaceae
- Motility
- stationaryPBDB, for Halimedaceae
- Environment
- hypersaline,marine,brackishPBDB, for Halimedaceae
Time the record covers
At most 15 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 56 Mya and 41.03 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Halimeda tuna on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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- Eocene100%
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.
Halimeda tuna and its relatives
EoceneWhere Halimeda tuna and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
20 taxa- Acicularia2 sites
- Alveolina2 sites
- Halimeda cylindracea2 sites
- Halimeda fragilis2 sites
- Lockhartia2 sites
- Nummulites2 sites
- Ovulites arabica2 sites
- Ovulites margaritula2 sites
- Ovulites pyriformis2 sites
- Textularia2 sites
- Borelis1 site
- Corallina matansa1 site
- Daviesina1 site
- Discocyclina1 site
- Jania occidentalis1 site
- Lithoporella melobesioides1 site
- Operculina1 site
- Orbitolites1 site
- Rotalia1 site
- Sporolithon1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Halimeda tuna, 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 referenceEach 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 doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Halimeda tuna
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Diego Delso
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Halimeda tuna 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
- 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 itHalimeda through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lamouroux 1816