Protospongia

Protospongia is a genus of Porifera described originally from the Middle Cambrian Menevia Formation of Porth-y-rhaw, St David’s, Pembrokeshire, SW Wales. Protospongia fenestrata Salter (1864) is the type species and, although based on only small fragments of the sponge skeleton, the arrangement of at least 3 orders of cross-shaped spicules is clearly evident. Six orders of spicule size were identified in the largest known example of Protospongia - a specimen of P. hicksi - from Clare Island, Co. Mayo, Republic of Ireland.

Protospongia

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
ProtospongiidaePBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB
Vision
blindPBDB, for Hexactinellida
Environment
marinePBDB, for Hexactinellida

Time the record covers

At least 142 million years on record.

The record covers at least 525.5 Mya to 383.4 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 538.8 Mya to 382.31 Mya.

Cambrian — about 54 of 70 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 4 of 70 occurrencesOrdovicianSilurian — about 6 of 70 occurrencesSilurianDevonian — about 6 of 70 occurrencesDevonian542–537 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences537–531 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences531–526 Mya — about 3 occurrences526–520 Mya — about 5 occurrences520–515 Mya — about 5 occurrences515–509 Mya — about 4 occurrences509–504 Mya — about 15 occurrences504–499 Mya — about 15 occurrences499–493 Mya — about 4 occurrences493–488 Mya — about 2 occurrences488–482 Mya — about 1 occurrence482–477 Mya — about 1 occurrence477–471 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences471–466 Mya — about 1 occurrence444–439 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences439–433 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences433–428 Mya — about 2 occurrences428–423 Mya — about 2 occurrences423–417 Mya — about 2 occurrences417–412 Mya — about 3 occurrences412–406 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences406–401 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences401–395 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences385–379 Mya — about 1 occurrence525.5 Mya383.4 Mya542 Mya379 Mya

70 occurrences of Protospongia on record, most of them in the Cambrian. 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

70 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

37 formations

Burgess Shale — 51.44°N, 116.47°WBurgess Shale — 51.38°N, 116.43°WRoberts Mountains — 41.28°N, 116.07°WRoberts Mountains — 41.43°N, 114.94°WMarjum — 39.22°N, 113.32°WMarjum — 39.00°N, 113.00°WMarjum — 39.27°N, 113.31°WHetang — 29.92°N, 118.08°EWheeler Shale — 39.36°N, 111.59°WWheeler Shale — 39.20°N, 113.30°WPestrotsvet — 57.25°N, 131.20°ELower Alum Shale — 55.00°N, 15.00°EYuanshan — 25.40°N, 103.38°EYuanshan — 25.72°N, 103.99°EDuchesnay — 51.10°N, 115.95°WDuchesnay — 50.63°N, 115.60°WYangliugang — 28.82°N, 118.60°EMenevia — 51.87°N, 5.22°WKinzers — 40.04°N, 76.31°WStephen — 51.40°N, 116.48°WMarjum Limestone — 39.22°N, 113.40°WXistos com Nodulos — 38.13°N, 6.98°WShineton Shale — 52.63°N, 2.58°WShineton Shales — 52.63°N, 2.58°WKlabava — 50.00°N, 14.00°EHunsrück Slate — 49.83°N, 7.37°ESukharikha — 67.14°N, 86.75°EJiumenchong — 26.67°N, 108.33°EHuangboling — 30.08°N, 117.00°EUst' Tagul — 55.57°N, 97.75°EUsatovo — 57.77°N, 109.95°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Protospongia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 13 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 8 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Protospongia and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Protospongia and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

693 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 49 sites for Protospongia, 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

43 references

Each of the 70 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. 31 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 Protospongia

Source
iDigBio
Credit
via iDigBio
Licence
CC0
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

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 itProtospongiidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Salter 1864