Protaster

Protaster

via iDigBio · CC0 · 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
ProtasteridaePBDB
Diet
detritivore, suspension feederPBDB, for Ophiuroidea
Life habit
low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Ophiuroidea
Motility
slow-movingPBDB, for Ophiuroidea
Vision
blindPBDB, for Ophiuroidea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Ophiuroidea

Time the record covers

At least 93 million years on record.

The record covers at least 458.2 Mya to 365.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 469.4 Mya to 358.86 Mya.

Ordovician — about 3 of 13 occurrencesOrdovicianSilurian — about 8 of 13 occurrencesSilurianDevonian — about 2 of 13 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 0 of 13 occurrences472–468 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences468–464 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences464–460 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences460–456 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences456–452 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences452–449 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences449–445 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences445–441 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences433–429 Mya — about 2 occurrences429–426 Mya — about 4 occurrences426–422 Mya — about 2 occurrences414–410 Mya — about 1 occurrence368–364 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences364–360 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences360–357 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences458.2 Mya365.2 Mya472 Mya357 Mya

13 occurrences of Protaster on record, most of them in the Silurian. 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

13 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

9 formations

Rochester Shale — 43.10°N, 79.06°WRochester Shale — 43.17°N, 78.68°WZahorany — 50.00°N, 14.00°EYan Yean — 36.93°S, 144.75°EMelbourne — 37.50°S, 145.50°EWenlock Shale — 52.97°N, 3.17°WBannisdale Slates — 54.32°N, 2.73°WWocklum — 51.34°N, 7.02°EGeorgian Bay — 44.54°N, 80.52°WAndouillé — 48.18°N, 1.35°W

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The named rock units Protaster has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Protaster and its relatives

Silurian

Where Protaster and its relatives were recorded in the Silurian.

Found in the same rock

213 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Protaster, 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

10 references

Each of the 13 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 Protaster

Source
iDigBio
Credit
via iDigBio
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Protaster was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itProtasteridae through timeFormations of the SilurianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Forbes 1849