Adelophthalmus

Adelophthalmus is a genus of eurypterid, an extinct group of aquatic arthropods. Fossils of Adelophthalmus have been discovered in deposits ranging in age from the Early Devonian to the Early Permian, which makes it the longest lived of all known eurypterid genera, with a total temporal range of over 120 million years. Adelopththalmus was the final genus of the Eurypterina suborder of eurypterids and consisted the only known genus of swimming eurypterids from the Middle Devonian until its extinction during the Permian, after which the few surviving eurypterids were all walking forms of the suborder Stylonurina.

Adelophthalmus

textbook: John Mason Clarke (1857-1925) and Rudolf Ruedemann (1864-1956) illustrator: James Hall (1811-1898) · Public Domain · 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
AdelophthalmidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Eurypterida
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Eurypterida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Eurypterida
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Eurypterida

Time the record covers

At least 109 million years on record.

The record covers at least 399.5 Mya to 290.1 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 410.62 Mya to 283.3 Mya.

Devonian — about 8 of 52 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 40 of 52 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 4 of 52 occurrencesPermian413–409 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences409–404 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences404–400 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences400–396 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences396–391 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences391–387 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences387–382 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences382–378 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences378–373 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences373–369 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences369–365 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences365–360 Mya — about 2 occurrences360–356 Mya — about 1 occurrence356–351 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences351–347 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences347–343 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences343–338 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences334–329 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences329–325 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences325–320 Mya — about 4 occurrences320–316 Mya — about 9 occurrences316–312 Mya — about 6 occurrences312–307 Mya — about 7 occurrences307–303 Mya — about 5 occurrences303–298 Mya — about 6 occurrences298–294 Mya — about 1 occurrence294–290 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences290–285 Mya — about 1 occurrence285–281 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences399.5 Mya290.1 Mya413 Mya281 Mya

52 occurrences of Adelophthalmus on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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

52 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

38 formations

Charleroi — 50.41°N, 4.45°ECharleroi — 50.47°N, 3.65°ECharleroi — 50.42°N, 3.86°ECharleroi — 51.03°N, 5.37°EWellington — 36.44°N, 97.17°WWellington — 38.64°N, 97.21°WCatskill — 41.79°N, 78.20°WLancaster — 45.24°N, 66.08°WSaarbrucken’schen Kohlengebirges — 49.26°N, 7.00°EKarviná beds — 49.80°N, 18.47°EBursum — 34.83°N, 106.91°WOdolov — 50.56°N, 16.07°EMeledis — 46.54°N, 13.30°EGogo — 18.58°S, 125.90°EKlerf — 50.25°N, 6.46°EKittanning — 40.80°N, 80.47°WSharon — 41.52°N, 79.59°WVenango — 41.83°N, 79.20°WVale da Mó — 40.38°N, 8.38°WIndian Cave Sandstone — 40.46°N, 95.69°WWaynesburg — 39.91°N, 80.09°WHamilton channel fill — 37.99°N, 96.11°WAssise 3éme — 43.26°N, 5.79°WChâtelet — 50.98°N, 5.70°EUpper Kittanning Coal — 40.80°N, 80.47°WMiddle Coal Measures — 52.98°N, 1.31°WEvieux — 50.45°N, 5.28°EGlencartholm Volcanic Beds — 55.20°N, 3.07°W

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The named rock units Adelophthalmus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 14 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 10 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Adelophthalmus and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Adelophthalmus and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

285 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 51 sites for Adelophthalmus, 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 52 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 content2

Picture of Adelophthalmus

Credit
textbook: John Mason Clarke (1857-1925) and Rudolf Ruedemann (1864-1956) illustrator: James Hall (1811-1898)
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itAdelophthalmidae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Jordan and von Mayer 1854