Lytechinus pictus

Lytechinus pictus, commonly known as the painted urchin, is a sea urchin in the family Toxopneustidae. It occurs on shallow reefs in the tropical and subtropical eastern Pacific Ocean, off the coasts of California, Central America and South America as far south as Ecuador.

Lytechinus pictus

Stefan Countryman · CC0 · 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
LytechinusPBDB
Diet
grazer, deposit feederPBDB, for Echinoidea
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Echinoidea
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Echinoidea
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Echinoidea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Echinodermata

Time the record covers

At least 15 million years on record.

The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Oligocene — about 0 of 3 occurrencesMiocene — about 1 of 3 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 3 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 1 of 3 occurrencesPleistocene24–23 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.5–4.7 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences4.7–3.9 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences3.9–3.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences3.1–2.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences785 ka–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence15.98 Mya129 ka23.5 Mya0 Mya

3 occurrences of Lytechinus pictus on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

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

Vaqueros — 33.98°N, 120.09°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.99°N, 118.45°W

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The named rock units Lytechinus pictus 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.

Lytechinus pictus and its relatives

Miocene

Where Lytechinus pictus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

432 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Lytechinus pictus, 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

1 reference

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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Lytechinus pictus

Credit
Stefan Countryman
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itLytechinus through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Verrill 1867)