Belinuridae

Belinuridae is an extinct family of arthropods belonging to the order Xiphosura, known from the latest Devonian, Carboniferous and Early Permian. They are placed as the only members of the infraorder Belinurina. They were one of the most successful and diverse groups of xiphosurans in their evolutionary history, having managed to colonise and diversify within freshwater environments particularly during the Carboniferous period.

Belinuridae

Russell D. C. Bicknell and Stephen Pates · 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
BelinurinaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Xiphosura
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Xiphosura
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Xiphosura
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Xiphosurida

Time the record covers

At least 109 million years on record.

The record covers at least 399.5 Mya to 290.1 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 410.62 Mya to 274.4 Mya.

Devonian — about 2 of 132 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 125 of 132 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 5 of 132 occurrencesPermian413–409 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences409–404 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences404–399 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences366–361 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences361–357 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences328–324 Mya — about 3 occurrences324–319 Mya — about 5 occurrences319–314 Mya — about 59 occurrences314–309 Mya — about 17 occurrences309–305 Mya — about 30 occurrences305–300 Mya — about 11 occurrences300–295 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences295–291 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences291–286 Mya — about 2 occurrences286–281 Mya — about 1 occurrence281–276 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences276–272 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences399.5 Mya290.1 Mya413 Mya272 Mya

132 occurrences of Belinuridae on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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

132 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

39 formations

Carbondale — 41.34°N, 88.39°WCarbondale — 41.30°N, 88.15°WWettin — 51.63°N, 11.95°EPennant Sandstone — 51.75°N, 3.40°WPennant Sandstone — 51.65°N, 3.24°WPennine Lower Coal Measures — 53.53°N, 2.51°WCoolbaun Coal — 52.80°N, 7.04°WAlmaznaya — 47.93°N, 38.20°EAlmaznaya — 48.28°N, 39.90°EWellington — 36.33°N, 97.28°WWellington — 38.13°N, 97.21°WFarrington — 51.28°N, 2.46°WFarrington — 51.30°N, 2.43°WSmolyaninovskaya — 48.62°N, 38.00°ESmolyaninovskaya — 48.37°N, 39.05°EBelaya Kalitva — 48.31°N, 40.25°EPennant — 51.71°N, 3.91°WParrsboro — 45.43°N, 63.03°WKarvina — 49.80°N, 18.47°ELlewellyn — 40.72°N, 76.23°WLlewellyn — 41.25°N, 75.84°WHeath — 46.95°N, 108.96°WLawrence — 38.93°N, 95.35°WUpper Coal Measures — 54.91°N, 1.44°WMiddle Coal Measures — 52.99°N, 1.31°WMeledis — 46.52°N, 13.33°EWettiner — 51.63°N, 11.95°ECoolbaun Formation — 52.81°N, 7.20°WKiltorcan — 52.45°N, 7.18°WFlöz Dreibänke — 52.32°N, 8.01°ESmolyaninovskaya — 47.80°N, 39.95°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Belinuridae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 15 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 63 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Belinuridae and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Belinuridae and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

496 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 108 sites for Belinuridae, 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

49 references

Each of the 132 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. 37 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 Belinuridae

Credit
Russell D. C. Bicknell and Stephen Pates
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Belinuridae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access 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 itBelinurina through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Zittel and Eastman 1913