Beckwithia

Beckwithia is an extinct genus of average to large size, soft bodied artiopodan arthropods that lived during the late Middle and Upper Cambrian on the former paleocontinent Laurentia, in what are now Utah and Wisconsin. It has an inverted egg-shape, with a semi-circular head, 11 abdominal segments and a tail spine. It is a typical member of the group Aglaspidida.

Beckwithia

Dwergenpaartje · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
AglaspididaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Aglaspidida

Time the record covers

At most 18 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 504.5 Mya and 486.85 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Cambrian — about 3 of 3 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 0 of 3 occurrences505–504 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences504–504 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences504–503 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences503–503 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences503–502 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences502–501 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences501–501 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences501–500 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences500–499 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences499–499 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences499–498 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences498–498 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences498–497 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences497–496 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences496–496 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences496–495 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences495–494 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences494–494 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences494–493 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences493–493 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences493–492 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences492–491 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences491–491 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences491–490 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences490–489 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences489–489 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences489–488 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences488–488 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences488–487 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences487–486 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences505 Mya486.4 Mya

3 occurrences of Beckwithia 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

3 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

Weeks — 39.22°N, 113.34°WWeeks — 39.22°N, 113.40°WSnegurovka — 44.23°N, 133.12°E

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

Beckwithia and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Beckwithia and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

75 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Beckwithia, 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

3 references

Each of the 3 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. 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 Beckwithia

Credit
Dwergenpaartje
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Beckwithia was found in Smithsonian Open Access and Sketchfab.

MorphoSource was 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 itAglaspidida through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Resser 1931