Holothuria

Holothuria is the type genus of the marine animal family Holothuriidae, part of the class Holothuroidea, commonly known as sea cucumbers. Members of the genus are found in coastal waters in tropical and temperate regions. They are soft-bodied, limbless invertebrates which dwell on the ocean floor and are usually detritivores. They resemble a cucumber in form. The genus contains some species that are harvested and sold as food.

Holothuria

Philippe Bourjon · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
HolothuriidaePBDB
Diet
deposit feeder, suspension feederPBDB, for Aspidochirotida
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Aspidochirotida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Aspidochirotida
Vision
blindPBDB, for Holothuroidea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Aspidochirotida

Time the record covers

At least 69 million years on record.

The record covers at least 306 Mya to 237 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 312.8 Mya to 233.6 Mya.

Carboniferous — about 18 of 19 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 0 of 19 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 19 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 19 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 1 of 19 occurrences314–312 Mya — about 3 occurrences312–309 Mya — about 7 occurrences309–306 Mya — about 7 occurrences306–303 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences238–235 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences235–232 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences306 Mya237 Mya314 Mya232 Mya

19 occurrences of Holothuria on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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

19 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

2 formations

Wewoka — 35.04°N, 96.36°WCassian — 46.51°N, 11.95°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Holothuria has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Holothuria and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Holothuria and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

119 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 19 sites for Holothuria, 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

Each of the 19 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 content1

Picture of Holothuria

Credit
Philippe Bourjon
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Holothuria 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 itHolothuriidae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1767