Belotelson
Belotelson is a genus of crustaceans, in the extinct order Belotelsonidea, containing at least two species. It was first named by Packard in 1886 from material found in the Mazon Creek lagerstätte in Illinois. Its fossils have been found in Pennsylvanian age rocks.

James St. John · CC BY 2.0 · 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
- BelotelsonidaePBDB
- Diet
- omnivorePBDB, for Malacostraca
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Malacostraca
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Malacostraca
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Malacostraca
Time the record covers
At least 13 million years on record.
The record covers at least 323.6 Mya to 309.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 326.9 Mya to 307.4 Mya.
2 occurrences of Belotelson 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
2 occurrences- Carboniferous100%
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
- Heath Formation · Big Snowy Group1
- Carbondale Formation · Kewanee Group1
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The named rock units Belotelson has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Belotelson and its relatives
CarboniferousWhere Belotelson and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.
Found in the same rock
62 taxa- Adiphlebia lacoana1 site
- Aesopichthys erinaceus1 site
- Alanympha richardsoni1 site
- Amarixys stellaris1 site
- Amynilyspes wortheni1 site
- Animalia1 site
- Anthrakoris aetherius1 site
- Archisymplectes rhothon1 site
- Beagiascus pulcherrimus1 site
- Belantsea montana1 site
- Belinuridae1 site
- Bizarrea obscura1 site
- Boeotiaspis longispinus1 site
- Carbonympha herdinai1 site
- Carbosesostris megaliphagon1 site
- Caridosuctor populosum1 site
- Curculioides gigas1 site
- Curculioides mcluckiei1 site
- Cyranorhis bergeraci1 site
- Damocles serratus1 site
- Debeerius ellefseni1 site
- Falcatus falcatus1 site
- Gerarus danielsi1 site
- Gerarus vetus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Belotelson, 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
2 references- Lobetelson mclaughlinae n. gen., n. sp., a new genus and species of belotelsonid malacostracan from the Pennsylvanian of the Mazon Creek area1
- Mazon Creek caridoid Crustacea1
Each of the 2 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Belotelson
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- James St. John
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC0 Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Belotelson”
- 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 itBelotelsonidae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Packard 1886