Ophiacanthidae

Ophiacanthidae is a family of brittle stars. Axel Vilhelm Ljungman circumscribed this taxon in 1867; he initially named the subfamily Ophiacanthinae within the family Amphiuridae. Gordon L. J. Paterson promoted its rank to family in 1985.

Ophiacanthidae

NOAA Okeanos Explorer · 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
OphiacanthinaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB
Vision
blindPBDB, for Ophiuroidea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Ophiuroidea

Time the record covers

At least 167 million years on record.

The record covers at least 233.6 Mya to 66 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 237 Mya to 61.66 Mya.

Middle Triassic — about 0 of 58 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 5 of 58 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 9 of 58 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 5 of 58 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 10 of 58 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 5 of 58 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 23 of 58 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 1 of 58 occurrences241–234 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences234–228 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences210–204 Mya — about 2 occurrences204–198 Mya — about 3 occurrences198–192 Mya — about 1 occurrence192–186 Mya — about 2 occurrences186–180 Mya — about 4 occurrences180–174 Mya — about 2 occurrences174–168 Mya — about 1 occurrence168–161 Mya — about 3 occurrences161–155 Mya — about 9 occurrences155–149 Mya — about 1 occurrence137–131 Mya — about 1 occurrence131–125 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences125–119 Mya — about 2 occurrences119–113 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences113–107 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences107–101 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences101–95 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences95–89 Mya — about 2 occurrences89–82 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences82–76 Mya — about 4 occurrences76–70 Mya — about 6 occurrences70–64 Mya — about 9 occurrences64–58 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences233.6 Mya66 Mya241 Mya58 Mya

58 occurrences of Ophiacanthidae on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

58 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

17 formations

White Chalk — 54.52°N, 13.63°EGulpen — 50.73°N, 5.67°EGulpen — 50.80°N, 5.67°EHumeralis Schichten — 47.47°N, 7.37°EMaastricht — 50.85°N, 5.70°ERenggeri-Ton — 46.83°N, 5.97°ERenggeri-Ton — 45.95°N, 5.55°ENayband — 31.15°N, 52.65°EGünsberg-Schichten — 47.33°N, 7.60°EEffinger Schichten — 47.26°N, 7.52°EVincentown — 39.93°N, 74.73°WBridport Sand — 50.71°N, 2.76°WSundays River — 33.87°S, 25.60°EPeruc-Korycany — 50.06°N, 15.10°EBìlà Hora — 49.83°N, 15.25°EVaals — 50.73°N, 5.67°ETeplice — 50.45°N, 14.05°ENakatsuka — 34.03°N, 131.12°EPluto Glacier — 71.32°S, 68.31°W

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The named rock units Ophiacanthidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 30 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Ophiacanthidae and its relatives

Late Cretaceous

Where Ophiacanthidae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

789 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 41 sites for Ophiacanthidae, 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

26 references

Each of the 58 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. 14 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 Ophiacanthidae

Credit
NOAA Okeanos Explorer
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ophiacanthidae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access 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 itOphiacanthina through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Perrier 1893