Arenicolites

Arenicolites is a U-shaped ichnotaxon dating from Ediacaran times onwards in South Australia. The trace shown by this fossil, is a pair of closely spaced circles on a bedding plane. In vertical section the traces are U- or J-shaped. They appear to be burrows made by a kind of worm.

A picture published with the record for Arenicolites. What it shows has not been checked.

Tatsuo Oji, Stephen Q. Dornbos, Keigo Yada, Hitoshi Hasegawa, Sersmaa Gonchigdorj, Takafumi Mochizuki, Hideko Takayan… · CC BY 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
IchnofossilsPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 455 million years on record.

The record covers at least 538.8 Mya to 83.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 635 Mya to 72.2 Mya.

Cambrian — about 1 of 38 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 1 of 38 occurrencesSilurian — about 2 of 38 occurrencesDevonian — about 2 of 38 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 5 of 38 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 0 of 38 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 7 of 38 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 1 of 38 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 2 of 38 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 1 of 38 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 2 of 38 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 3 of 38 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 5 of 38 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 1 of 38 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 38 occurrences646–627 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences627–607 Mya — about 1 occurrence607–588 Mya — about 1 occurrence588–568 Mya — about 1 occurrence568–549 Mya — about 1 occurrence549–529 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences529–510 Mya — about 1 occurrence490–471 Mya — about 1 occurrence451–432 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences432–412 Mya — about 2 occurrences412–393 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences393–373 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences373–354 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences354–334 Mya — about 1 occurrence334–315 Mya — about 1 occurrence315–295 Mya — about 3 occurrences256–237 Mya — about 8 occurrences237–217 Mya — about 1 occurrence217–198 Mya — about 1 occurrence198–178 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences178–158 Mya — about 3 occurrences158–139 Mya — about 2 occurrences139–119 Mya — about 1 occurrence119–100 Mya — about 4 occurrences100–80 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences80–61 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences538.8 Mya83.6 Mya646 Mya61 Mya

38 occurrences of Arenicolites on record, most of them in the Early Triassic. 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

38 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

26 formations

Moenkopi — 36.60°N, 114.57°WMoenkopi — 36.55°N, 114.61°WPottsville — 33.81°N, 87.17°WPottsville — 33.94°N, 87.22°WSanta Maria — 29.64°S, 53.45°WPajarito — 38.07°N, 102.98°WDaye — 26.51°N, 106.87°EContra Fogo Sandstone — 4.00°S, 40.67°WZuun-Arts — 45.72°N, 95.32°EKap Leslie — 70.48°N, 21.97°WStappogiedde — 70.90°N, 28.67°ETakche — 32.03°N, 78.00°EMyslejovice — 49.27°N, 17.00°EElephant Canyon — 38.50°N, 109.67°WBolloncillos — 41.70°N, 1.55°WDuntulm — 57.62°N, 6.20°WVillar del Arzobispo — 40.67°N, 0.88°WGypsum Spring — 44.52°N, 107.74°WOcieseki Sandstone — 50.90°N, 20.90°EAgrio — 37.86°S, 69.99°WBeach — 47.59°N, 53.01°WBlue Lias — 50.71°N, 2.96°WEumeralla — 38.76°S, 143.32°EJiaguan — 28.24°N, 105.83°EMattoon — 38.44°N, 87.86°WCerro del Pueblo — 25.50°N, 101.40°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Arenicolites has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Arenicolites and its relatives

Early Triassic

Where Arenicolites and its relatives were recorded in the Early Triassic.

Found in the same rock

268 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 37 sites for Arenicolites, 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

29 references

Each of the 38 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. 17 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 Arenicolites

Credit
Tatsuo Oji, Stephen Q. Dornbos, Keigo Yada, Hitoshi Hasegawa, Sersmaa Gonchigdorj, Takafumi Mochizuki, Hideko Takayan…
Licence
CC BY 4.0
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

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 itIchnofossils through timeFormations of the Early TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Salter 1857