Pteridinium

Pteridinium is an extinct organism from the later Ediacaran of Africa, Asia, and North America, and was live around 567.3 – 543 Ma. It is a part of the Erniettomorpha class, and is composed of three vanes, or petaloids, in a canoe-like shape.

Pteridinium

Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
ErniettomorphaPBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB
Life habit
intermediate-level epifaunalPBDB
Motility
stationaryPBDB
Vision
blindPBDB, for Erniettomorpha
Environment
inner shelf,marinePBDB

Time the record covers

At most 110 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 635 Mya and 525.5 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Cambrian — about 1 of 29 occurrencesCambrian637–633 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences633–630 Mya — about 1 occurrence630–626 Mya — about 1 occurrence626–622 Mya — about 1 occurrence622–618 Mya — about 1 occurrence618–614 Mya — about 1 occurrence614–611 Mya — about 1 occurrence611–607 Mya — about 1 occurrence607–603 Mya — about 1 occurrence603–599 Mya — about 1 occurrence599–595 Mya — about 1 occurrence595–592 Mya — about 1 occurrence592–588 Mya — about 1 occurrence588–584 Mya — about 1 occurrence584–580 Mya — about 1 occurrence580–576 Mya — about 1 occurrence576–573 Mya — about 1 occurrence573–569 Mya — about 1 occurrence569–565 Mya — about 1 occurrence565–561 Mya — about 1 occurrence561–557 Mya — about 1 occurrence557–554 Mya — about 1 occurrence554–550 Mya — about 1 occurrence550–546 Mya — about 1 occurrence546–542 Mya — about 1 occurrence542–538 Mya — about 1 occurrence538–535 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences535–531 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences531–527 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences527–523 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences637 Mya523 Mya

29 occurrences of Pteridinium 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

29 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

12 formations

Dabis — 22.00°S, 17.00°EDabis — 22.58°S, 17.08°EDabis — 26.65°S, 16.27°EDabis — 26.30°S, 17.03°EVerkhovka — 63.92°N, 38.08°EVerkhovka — 64.72°N, 38.92°EUrusis — 22.00°S, 17.00°EUrusis — 27.48°S, 16.70°EUrusis — 27.45°S, 16.56°EMillingport — 35.36°N, 80.35°WMillingport — 35.17°N, 80.40°WNudaus — 22.58°S, 17.08°ENudaus — 24.36°S, 16.49°ENudaus — 24.49°S, 16.36°EDengying — 30.81°N, 111.15°EDengying — 30.79°N, 111.05°ERawnsley Quartzite — 30.97°S, 138.18°ERawnsley Quartzite — 30.85°S, 138.13°EWilpena — 33.78°S, 138.23°EKuibis Quartzite — 26.65°S, 15.13°EBlueflower — 64.67°N, 132.00°WFloyd Church — 35.42°N, 80.33°WNomtsas — 27.42°S, 16.43°E

Loading coastlines…

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

Pteridinium and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Pteridinium and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

117 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 27 sites for Pteridinium, 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

18 references

Each of the 29 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. 6 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 Pteridinium

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Pteridinium 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.

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 itErniettomorpha through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gürich 1930