Protospongia

Searched as Protospongia hicksii. The Paleobiology Database treats Protospongia as the accepted name.

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 most 7.5 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 504.5 Mya and 497 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Cambrian — about 1 of 1 occurrenceCambrian505–504 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences504–504 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences504–504 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences504–504 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences504–503 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences503–503 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences503–503 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences503–502 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences502–502 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences502–502 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences502–502 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences502–501 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences501–501 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences501–501 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences501–500 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences500–500 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences500–500 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences500–500 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences500–499 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences499–499 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences499–499 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences499–498 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences498–498 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences498–498 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences498–498 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences498–497 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences497–497 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences497–497 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences505 Mya496.5 Mya

1 occurrence 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

1 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

1 formation

El Mogallón — 28.92°N, 109.29°W

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The named rock units Protospongia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to doi.org. 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 of Protospongia 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.

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