Psammechinus

Psammechinus is a genus of sea urchins in the family Parechinidae containing two species:

Psammechinus

Massimiliano DE MARTINO · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
EchinidaePBDB
Diet
grazer, deposit feederPBDB, for Echinoidea
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Echinoidea
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Echinoidea
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Echinoidea
Environment
marinePBDB, for Echinodermata

Time the record covers

At least 127 million years on record.

The record covers at least 132.6 Mya to 5.333 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 137.05 Mya to 2.58 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 6 of 50 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 2 of 50 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 1 of 50 occurrencesEocene — about 4 of 50 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 4 of 50 occurrencesMiocene — about 25 of 50 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 8 of 50 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 50 occurrences140–135 Mya — about 1 occurrence135–130 Mya — about 2 occurrences130–126 Mya — about 1 occurrence126–121 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences121–116 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences116–112 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences102–98 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences98–93 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences84–79 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences79–75 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences75–70 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences61–56 Mya — about 1 occurrence56–51 Mya — about 1 occurrence51–47 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences47–42 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences42–37 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences37–33 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences33–28 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences28–23 Mya — about 3 occurrences23–19 Mya — about 4 occurrences19–14 Mya — about 6 occurrences14–9.3 Mya — about 3 occurrences9.3–4.7 Mya — about 14 occurrences4.7–0 Mya — about 5 occurrences132.6 Mya5.333 Mya140 Mya0 Mya

50 occurrences of Psammechinus on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

50 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

16 formations

Yorktown — 35.36°N, 76.82°WYorktown — 36.99°N, 76.61°WYorktown — 37.06°N, 76.33°WYorktown — 36.86°N, 76.58°WCasamayor — 47.72°S, 66.70°WKoronia — 35.03°N, 33.15°EKoronia — 35.03°N, 33.12°EUpper Marine Molasse — 46.88°N, 7.51°EVuache — 46.83°N, 6.52°EVincentown — 39.97°N, 74.68°WChipola — 30.50°N, 85.12°WGoose Creek — 33.33°N, 80.15°WBaucina — 37.82°N, 12.80°ECotinguiba — 10.76°S, 37.07°WBorutta — 40.83°N, 8.43°ERiver Bend — 35.15°N, 77.14°WSuwanee — 31.00°N, 86.27°WWaccamaw — 32.98°N, 80.03°WOcala — 30.92°N, 84.56°WGuadaíra — 37.36°N, 5.84°W

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The named rock units Psammechinus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 26 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Psammechinus and its relatives

Miocene

Where Psammechinus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

1,233 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 48 sites for Psammechinus, 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

28 references

Each of the 50 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. 16 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 Psammechinus

Credit
Massimiliano DE MARTINO
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Psammechinus 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 itEchinidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.