Aglaspidida

Aglaspidida is an extinct order of marine arthropods known from fossils spanning the Middle Cambrian to the Upper Ordovician. Initially considered chelicerates, modern anatomical comparisons demonstrate that the aglaspidids cannot be accommodated within this group, and that they lie instead within the Artiopoda, thus placing them closer to the trilobites, being placed in the artiopod subgroup Vicissicaudata.

Aglaspidida

Junnn11 · 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
VicissicaudataPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB
Vision
well-developedPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 66 million years on record.

The record covers at least 516 Mya to 449.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 521 Mya to 445.2 Mya.

Cambrian — about 42 of 52 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 10 of 52 occurrencesOrdovician523–520 Mya — about 2 occurrences520–517 Mya — about 4 occurrences517–515 Mya — about 2 occurrences515–512 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences512–509 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences509–507 Mya — about 2 occurrences507–504 Mya — about 2 occurrences504–501 Mya — about 2 occurrences501–499 Mya — about 2 occurrences499–496 Mya — about 2 occurrences496–494 Mya — about 2 occurrences494–491 Mya — about 2 occurrences491–488 Mya — about 12 occurrences488–486 Mya — about 9 occurrences478–475 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences475–473 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences473–470 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences470–467 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences467–465 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences465–462 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences462–459 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences459–457 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences457–454 Mya — about 1 occurrence454–452 Mya — about 1 occurrence452–449 Mya — about 2 occurrences449–446 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences446–444 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences516 Mya449.5 Mya523 Mya444 Mya

52 occurrences of Aglaspidida on record, most of them in the Cambrian. 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

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

21 formations

St. Lawrence — 43.19°N, 89.77°WSt. Lawrence — 43.35°N, 91.22°WSt. Lawrence — 43.20°N, 90.07°WSt. Lawrence — 43.33°N, 90.39°WWeeks — 39.22°N, 113.34°WWeeks — 39.22°N, 113.40°WEmigrant — 38.00°N, 117.00°WEmigrant — 37.91°N, 117.89°WSandu — 23.33°N, 106.12°EMickwitzia Sandstone — 58.60°N, 13.35°EMickwitzia Sandstone — 58.62°N, 13.43°ESnegurovka — 44.23°N, 133.12°EYuanshan — 24.84°N, 102.41°EYuanshan — 24.81°N, 102.58°EValhallfonna — 78.90°N, 18.02°EZhaolaoyu — 35.00°N, 109.20°ETrempealeau — 44.52°N, 89.57°WOcieseki Sandstone — 51.00°N, 20.00°EFile Haidar — 58.62°N, 13.77°EGuttenberg — 42.81°N, 89.64°WDunleith — 42.81°N, 89.64°WFezouata — 30.50°N, 5.85°WStephen — 51.17°N, 116.08°WYu'anshan — 24.77°N, 102.59°EUpper Tiouririne — 31.43°N, 4.10°WYaoxian — 34.85°N, 108.84°ELetna — 50.00°N, 14.00°EDeadwood — 44.52°N, 104.44°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Aglaspidida has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Aglaspidida and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Aglaspidida and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

408 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 34 sites for Aglaspidida, 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

22 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. 10 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 Aglaspidida

Credit
Junnn11
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Aglaspidida 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 itVicissicaudata through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Raasch 1939