Amiskwia

Amiskwia is a genus of soft-bodied marine animals known from fossils of the Middle Cambrian Lagerstätten both in the Burgess Shale in British Columbia, Canada and the Maotianshan shales of Yunnan Province, China. It is interpreted as a member of the clade Gnathifera sensu lato, as a close relative of modern chaetognaths.

Amiskwia

Mark Florence · CC0 · 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
AmiskwidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
nektonicPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB

Time the record covers

At least 6.3 million years on record.

The record covers at least 516 Mya to 509.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 521 Mya to 505.3 Mya.

Cambrian — about 2 of 2 occurrencesCambrian522–521 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences521–520 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences520–520 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences520–519 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences519–519 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences519–518 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences518–518 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences518–517 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences517–516 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences516–516 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences510–509 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences509–509 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences509–508 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences508–508 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences508–507 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences507–506 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences506–506 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences506–505 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences505–505 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences516 Mya509.7 Mya521.5 Mya504.8 Mya

2 occurrences of Amiskwia 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

2 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

2 formations

Yuanshan — 24.81°N, 102.58°EBurgess Shale — 51.44°N, 116.47°W

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

Amiskwia and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Amiskwia and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

218 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Amiskwia, 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

2 references

Each of the 2 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. 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 Amiskwia

Credit
Mark Florence
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Amiskwia 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 itAmiskwidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Walcott 1911