Lytechinus variegatus
Lytechinus variegatus, commonly called the green sea urchin or the variegated sea urchin, is a species of sea urchin that can be found in the warm waters of the western Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea.

Hans Hillewaert · 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
- 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 3.4 million years on record.
The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka.
4 occurrences of Lytechinus variegatus 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
4 occurrences- Pliocene25%
- Pleistocene75%
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
4 formations
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The named rock units Lytechinus variegatus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Lytechinus variegatus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Lytechinus variegatus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
212 taxa- Agassizia porifera2 sites
- Balanus2 sites
- Cancellaria reticulata2 sites
- Chelonibia testudinaria2 sites
- Nodipecten2 sites
- Rhyncholampas2 sites
- Abra aequalis1 site
- Acropora cervicornis1 site
- Acrothoracica1 site
- Acteocina canaliculata1 site
- Aligena elevata1 site
- Anadara (Cunearca) brasiliana1 site
- Anadara (Rasia) lienosa1 site
- Anapesus carolinus1 site
- Anatina anatina1 site
- Angaria crassa1 site
- Angulus texanus1 site
- Anomia simplex1 site
- Arbacia1 site
- Architectonica gemma1 site
- Architectonica nobilis1 site
- Arcinella arcinella1 site
- Argopecten1 site
- Argopecten irradians1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Lytechinus variegatus, 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- Diversity patterns and biostratigraphy of Cenozoic echinodems from Florida2
- The Mesozoic and Cenozoic Echinodermata of the United States2
Each of the 4 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 Lytechinus variegatus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Hans Hillewaert
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Lytechinus variegatus was found in Smithsonian Open Access and Sketchfab.
MorphoSource 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 itLytechinus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Lamarck 1816)