Belinurus

Belinurus is an extinct genus of arthropods belonging to the order Xiphosura. It is part of the family Belinuridae, in the infraorder Belinurina. There used to be a longstanding academic controversy on whether Belinurus, Belinurus or Bellinurus had priority as a name over the genus. In 2021, the American paleontologist James C. Lamsdell did a study on this controversy and determined that the first name was not formally published and was therefore invalid and that the second one was valid and therefore had priority over the third one, the name of the genus thus being Belinurus.

Belinurus

Hectonichus · 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
BelinuridaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Xiphosura
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Xiphosura
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Xiphosura
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Xiphosurida

Time the record covers

At least 89 million years on record.

The record covers at least 399.5 Mya to 309.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 410.62 Mya to 307.4 Mya.

Devonian — about 2 of 53 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 51 of 53 occurrencesCarboniferous413–409 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences409–406 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences406–402 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences402–398 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences366–363 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences363–359 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences359–355 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences327–323 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences323–320 Mya — about 3 occurrences320–316 Mya — about 27 occurrences316–312 Mya — about 17 occurrences312–309 Mya — about 3 occurrences309–305 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences399.5 Mya309.8 Mya413 Mya305 Mya

53 occurrences of Belinurus 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

53 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

15 formations

Coolbaun Coal — 52.80°N, 7.04°WAlmaznaya — 48.28°N, 39.90°EParrsboro — 45.43°N, 63.03°WKarvina — 49.80°N, 18.47°EUpper Coal Measures — 54.91°N, 1.44°WCarbondale — 41.34°N, 88.39°WPennine Lower Coal Measures — 53.53°N, 2.51°WCoolbaun Formation — 52.81°N, 7.20°WKiltorcan — 52.45°N, 7.18°WSmolyaninovskaya — 47.80°N, 39.95°EMospino — 48.05°N, 38.26°EKamenskaya — 47.95°N, 40.03°EMandrykino — 47.80°N, 38.49°EBelaya Kalitva — 48.31°N, 40.25°ESmolyaninovskaya — 48.37°N, 39.05°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Belinurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 34 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Belinurus and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Belinurus and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

169 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 45 sites for Belinurus, 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

22 references

Each of the 53 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. 10 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 Belinurus

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

No 3D scan of Belinurus 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 itBelinuridae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bronn 1839