Opissaster

Opissaster

via iDigBio · CC BY · via iDigBio. 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
SchizasteridaePBDB
Diet
deposit feeder, detritivorePBDB, for Spatangoida
Life habit
shallow infaunalPBDB, for Spatangoida
Motility
slow-movingPBDB, for Spatangoida
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Echinoidea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Spatangoida

Time the record covers

At least 29 million years on record.

The record covers at least 41.03 Mya to 11.04 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 48.07 Mya to 7.2 Mya.

Eocene — about 2 of 10 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 10 occurrencesMiocene — about 8 of 10 occurrencesMiocene49–47 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences47–46 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences46–45 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences45–43 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences43–42 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences42–40 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 2 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 3 occurrences21–19 Mya — about 1 occurrence19–18 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences18–16 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences15–13 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–9.2 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences9.2–7.8 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences7.8–6.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences41.03 Mya11.04 Mya48.9 Mya6.4 Mya

10 occurrences of Opissaster on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

2 formations

Borutta — 40.83°N, 8.43°EDammam — 25.49°N, 50.85°E

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The named rock units Opissaster has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Opissaster and its relatives

Miocene

Where Opissaster and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

69 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Opissaster, 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

4 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 content1

Picture of Opissaster

Source
iDigBio
Credit
via iDigBio
Licence
CC BY
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Opissaster 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.

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itSchizasteridae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Pomel 1883