Isoetaceae

Isoetaceae is a family including living quillworts (Isoetes) and comparable extinct herbaceous lycopsids (Tomiostrobus). It was previously thought to have evolved by reduction in size from arborsecent Isoetales such as Pleuromeia, but the discovery of Isoetes beestonii from the Early Triassic shows that the growth habits of modern quillworts predate Pleuromeia and point to the family being a survivor of the Permian–Triassic extinctions.

Isoetaceae

Retallack · 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
IsoetalesPBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta
Environment
freshwater,terrestrialPBDB, for Lycopodiophyta

Time the record covers

At least 243 million years on record.

The record covers at least 243.43 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 244.4 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Triassic — about 0 of 157 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 1 of 157 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 157 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 157 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 4 of 157 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 4 of 157 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 15 of 157 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 25 of 157 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 22 of 157 occurrencesEocene — about 5 of 157 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 2 of 157 occurrencesMiocene — about 4 of 157 occurrencesPliocene — about 3 of 157 occurrencesPleistocene — about 71 of 157 occurrences249–241 Mya — about 1 occurrence183–175 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences175–166 Mya — about 2 occurrences166–158 Mya — about 2 occurrences158–150 Mya — about 2 occurrences150–141 Mya — about 3 occurrences141–133 Mya — about 4 occurrences133–125 Mya — about 4 occurrences125–116 Mya — about 3 occurrences116–108 Mya — about 3 occurrences108–100 Mya — about 1 occurrence100–91 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences91–83 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences83–75 Mya — about 3 occurrences75–66 Mya — about 20 occurrences66–58 Mya — about 21 occurrences58–50 Mya — about 7 occurrences50–42 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences42–33 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences33–25 Mya — about 1 occurrence25–17 Mya — about 3 occurrences17–8.3 Mya — about 2 occurrences8.3–0 Mya — about 76 occurrences243.43 Mya11.7 ka249 Mya0 Mya

157 occurrences of Isoetaceae on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

157 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

27 formations

Monte Chico — 51.59°S, 72.41°WMonte Chico — 51.18°S, 72.29°WBhuj — 23.32°N, 69.77°EBhuj — 23.79°N, 68.85°EBhuj — 23.29°N, 69.70°EBhuj — 23.37°N, 69.71°EBhuj — 23.48°N, 69.27°EBhuj — 23.43°N, 69.13°EBhuj — 23.21°N, 70.08°EBhuj — 23.73°N, 68.90°EBhuj — 23.77°N, 68.88°ECerro Cazador — 51.59°S, 72.41°WCerro Cazador — 51.18°S, 72.22°WLefipán — 42.67°S, 69.83°WLefipán — 42.58°S, 69.98°WRintoul Creek — 38.12°S, 146.50°EGolden Valley — 46.98°N, 102.00°WGolden Valley — 47.98°N, 102.05°WGolden Valley — 47.17°N, 102.83°WGolden Valley — 47.00°N, 102.82°WTaratu — 43.18°S, 171.78°EBhuj (plus Jhuran in part?) — 23.40°N, 69.50°EFort Union — 47.10°N, 104.72°WFort Union — 46.02°N, 101.72°WCerro Dorotea — 51.59°S, 72.41°WHalf Three Point — 62.23°S, 58.98°WCullen — 53.00°S, 68.67°WCullen — 52.87°S, 68.41°WWillwood — 44.00°N, 109.00°WRenova — 45.50°N, 112.50°WCoon Hollow — 45.60°N, 116.50°WRavenscrag — 49.51°N, 109.02°WRaton — 36.90°N, 104.43°WFerris — 41.37°N, 108.83°WDawson arkose — 39.12°N, 104.17°WTullock — 46.41°N, 105.84°WLebo? — 41.94°N, 105.46°WWeald Clay — 51.13°N, 0.35°WDont — 46.74°N, 12.12°ELópez de Bertodano — 64.33°S, 56.87°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Isoetaceae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 79 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Isoetaceae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Isoetaceae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,268 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 146 sites for Isoetaceae, and this reads all of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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

37 references

Each of the 157 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. 25 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 content1

Picture of Isoetaceae

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

No 3D scan of Isoetaceae 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 itIsoetales through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

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