Mellita quinquiesperforata

Mellita quinquiesperforata is a tropical species of sand dollar, a flat, round marine animal related to sea urchins, starfish, and other echinoderms. They have been found to possess significantly more food in the gut at night than in the day. This species can be found along the eastern coast of the United States and the coast of Brazil. Inverted sand dollars are able to recognize flow direction and respond by modifying their orientation to maximize lift and drag for righting their position.

Mellita quinquiesperforata

The original uploader was Gerhard H at English Wikipedia . · 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
MellitaPBDB
Diet
detritivorePBDB, for Clypeasteroida
Life habit
semi-infaunalPBDB, for Clypeasteroida
Motility
slow-movingPBDB, for Clypeasteroida
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Echinoidea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Echinodermata

Time the record covers

At most 118 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 3 of 3 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 3 occurrences147 ka–126 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences126 ka–105 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences105 ka–84 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences84 ka–63 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences63 ka–42 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences42 ka–21 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences21 ka–0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences629 ka0 Mya

3 occurrences of Mellita quinquiesperforata on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

3 formations

Anastasia — 29.89°N, 81.29°WSatilla — 30.65°N, 81.79°WPamlico — 32.69°N, 80.23°W

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

Mellita quinquiesperforata and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Mellita quinquiesperforata and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

122 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Mellita quinquiesperforata, 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 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 doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Mellita quinquiesperforata

Credit
The original uploader was Gerhard H at English Wikipedia .
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itMellita through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Leske 1778)