Amplectobeluidae
Amplectobeluidae is a clade of Cambrian radiodonts. It currently includes five definitive genera, Amplectobelua, Lyrarapax, Ramskoeldia, Guanshancaris and a currently unnamed genus from the lower Cambrian aged Sirius Passet site in Greenland. There is also a potential fifth genus, Houcaris, but that genus has become problematic in terms of its taxonomic placement.

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
- RadiodontaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Radiodonta
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Radiodonta
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Radiodonta
Time the record covers
At least 11 million years on record.
The record covers at least 516 Mya to 504.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 521 Mya to 497 Mya.
39 occurrences of Amplectobeluidae 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
39 occurrences- Cambrian100%
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
11 formations
- Yu'anshan Formation14
- Yuanshan Formation12
- Latham Formation2
- Wheeler Shale Formation2
- Wulongqing Formation2
- Balang Formation2
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The named rock units Amplectobeluidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Amplectobeluidae and its relatives
CambrianWhere Amplectobeluidae and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.
Found in the same rock
467 taxa- Heliomedusa orienta18 sites
- Isoxys auritus17 sites
- Misszhouia longicaudata17 sites
- Kunmingella douvillei16 sites
- Leanchoilia illecebrosa16 sites
- Amplectobelua symbrachiata15 sites
- Mafangscolex sinensis15 sites
- Eoredlichia intermediata14 sites
- Naraoia spinosa14 sites
- Branchiocaris yunnanensis13 sites
- Cricocosmia jinningensis13 sites
- Naraoia12 sites
- Paraleptomitella dictyodroma12 sites
- Choiaella radiata11 sites
- Diandongia pista11 sites
- Eoglossa chengjiangensis11 sites
- Houcaris saron11 sites
- Isoxys paradoxus11 sites
- Selkirkia sinica11 sites
- Hazelia10 sites
- Leptomitus teretiusculus10 sites
- Yunnanocephalus yunnanensis10 sites
- Arthropoda9 sites
- Burithes yunnanensis9 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 33 sites for Amplectobeluidae, 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
17 references- Diversity and species abundance patterns of the early Cambrian (Series 2, Stage 3) Chengjiang Biota from China9
- Taphonomy and Palaeoecology of the Early Cambrian Chengjiang Biota from Eastern Yunnan, China6
- Spatial variation in the diversity and composition of the Lower Cambrian (Series 2, Stage 3) Chengjiang Biota, Southwest China4
- Systematics, preservation and biogeography of radiodonts from the southern Great Basin, USA, during the Upper Dyeran (Cambrian Series 2, Stage 4)3
- Lower Cambrian Burgess Shale-type fossil associations of South China3
- The endemic radiodionts of the Cambrian Stage 4 Guanshan Biota of South China2
- Community palaeoecology of the early Cambrian Maotianshan Shale biota: Ecological dominance of priapulid worms2
- A Cambrian soft-bodied biota after the first Phanerozoic mass extinction1
- First report of the Pingding locality of the Balang Lagerstätte (Cambrian Stage 4), South China: Implications for community complexity and geographic variation1
- The soft-bodied biota of the Cambrian Series 2 Parker Quarry Lagerstätte of northwestern Vermont, USA1
- The diverse radiodont fauna from the Marjum Formation of Utah, USA (Cambrian: Drumian)1
- New exceptionally preserved panarthropods from the Drumian Wheeler Konservat-Lagerstätte of the House Range of Utah1
Each of the 39 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. 5 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 Amplectobeluidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Junnn11
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
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 itRadiodonta through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Vinther et al. 2014