Millepora alcicornis

Millepora alcicornis, or sea ginger, is a species of fire coral with a calcareous skeleton. It is found on shallow water coral reefs in the tropical west Atlantic Ocean. It shows a variety of different morphologies depending on its location. It feeds on plankton and derives part of its energy requirements from microalgae found within its tissues. It is an important member of the reef building community and subject to the same threats as other corals. It can cause painful stings to unwary divers.

Millepora alcicornis

Nhobgood Nick Hobgood · 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
MilleporaPBDB
Diet
carnivore, suspension feederPBDB, for Hydrozoa
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Hydrozoa
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB, for Hydrozoa
Vision
blindPBDB, for Hydrozoa

Time the record covers

At least 33 million years on record.

The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 37.71 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Eocene — about 1 of 10 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 10 occurrencesMiocene — about 1 of 10 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 10 occurrencesPleistocene — about 7 of 10 occurrences38–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences35–33 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences21–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–15 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.4–5.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.1–3.8 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences3.8–2.6 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences2.6–1.3 Mya — about 3 occurrences1.3–0 Mya — about 4 occurrences33.9 Mya129 ka38.5 Mya0 Mya

10 occurrences of Millepora alcicornis 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

10 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

5 formations

Assomada — 14.91°N, 23.49°WGatuncillo — 9.18°N, 79.55°WKey Largo Limestone/Miami Oolite — 24.67°N, 81.57°WBuckingham — 25.70°N, 80.40°WSiamaná — 12.07°N, 71.44°W

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The named rock units Millepora alcicornis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Millepora alcicornis and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Millepora alcicornis and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

53 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Millepora alcicornis, 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

8 references

Each of the 10 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 content2

Picture of Millepora alcicornis

Credit
Nhobgood Nick Hobgood
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC0 Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

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 itMillepora through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758