Mussidae
Mussidae is a family of stony coral in the order Scleractinia. Following a taxonomic revision in 2012, the family is now restricted to species found in the Atlantic Ocean, with Pacific species transferred to the new family Lobophylliidae. Many species are referred to as brain coral because their generally spheroid form and grooved surface resembles the convolutions of a brain.

NOAA - Frank and Joyce Burek · Public Domain · 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
- FaviinaPBDB
- Diet
- photosymbiotic, suspension feederPBDB, for Faviina
- Life habit
- colonial, clonalPBDB, for Faviina
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Faviina
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Anthozoa
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Scleractinia
Time the record covers
At least 154 million years on record.
The record covers at least 154.8 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 161.5 Mya to 0 Mya.
1,465 occurrences of Mussidae 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
1,465 occurrences- Late Jurassicunder 1%
- Early Cretaceousunder 1%
- Late Cretaceousunder 1%
- Paleoceneunder 1%
- Eocene4%
- Oligocene9%
- Miocene17%
- Pliocene12%
- Pleistocene52%
- Holocene5%
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
121 formations
- Moin Formation · Limon Group156
- Ironshore Formation148
- Hato Formation96
- San Luis Formation57
- Gurabo Formation54
- Quebrada Chocolate Formation · Limon Group48
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The named rock units Mussidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 97 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 377 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Mussidae and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Mussidae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
1,367 taxa- Agaricia agaricites88 sites
- Porites55 sites
- Acropora cervicornis52 sites
- Orbicella limbata52 sites
- Pseudodiploria strigosa50 sites
- Porites astreoides49 sites
- Madracis decactis47 sites
- Siderastrea siderea45 sites
- Manicina areolata42 sites
- Stephanocoenia duncani42 sites
- Colpophyllia natans41 sites
- Acropora palmata40 sites
- Caulastrea portoricensis39 sites
- Montastraea37 sites
- Montastraea cylindrica35 sites
- Stephanocoenia intersepta35 sites
- Colpophyllia34 sites
- Agaricia lamarcki33 sites
- Placocyathus variabilis30 sites
- Stylophora granulata30 sites
- Montastraea faveolata29 sites
- Porites furcata29 sites
- Dichocoenia stokesi28 sites
- Montastraea cavernosa28 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 360 sites for Mussidae, and this reads 240 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
205 references- Pliocene to Pleistocene reef coral assemblages in the Limon Group of Costa Rica208
- Coral associations of the Pleistocene Ironshore Formation, Grand Cayman146
- Neogene reef coral assemblages of the Bocas del Toro region, Panama: the rise of Acropora palmata91
- Community structure of Pleistocene coral reefs of Curacao, Netherlands Antilles90
- Neogene Paleontology in the northern Dominican Republic 19: The family Faviidae (Anthozoa, Scleractinia) part II: The genera Caulastraea, Favia, Diploria, Thysanus, Hadrophyllia, Manicina and Colpophyllia75
- Broad-scale patterns in Pleistocene coral reef communities from the Caribbean: implications for ecology and management58
- Origination preceding extinction during late Cenozoic turnover of Caribbean reefs44
- Ecological persistence interrupted in Caribbean coral reefs36
- Systematische und paläoökologische Untersuchungen an oligozänen Korallen der Umgebung von San Luca (Provinz Vicenza, Norditalien) [Systematic and paleoecologic studies of Oligocene corals from San Luca area (Vicenza, northern Italy)]34
- Recherches sur les Madreporaires et les formations recifales Miocenes de la Mediterranee occidentale [Miocene corals and reefs from the western Mediterranean]34
- Zooxanthellate scleractinian corals of the Bowden shell bed, Southeast Jamaica30
- Overlapping species boundaries and hybridization within the Montastrea "annularis" reef coral complex in the Pleistocene of the Bahama Islands29
Each of the 1,465 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. 193 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 Mussidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- NOAA - Frank and Joyce Burek
- Licence
- Public Domain
- 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Mussidae”
- 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 itFaviina through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ortmann 1890