Brachyaspis

via iDigBio · CC0 · via iDigBio. 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
- AsaphidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Trilobita
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Asaphida
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Asaphida
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Asaphidae
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Trilobita
Time the record covers
At most 9.7 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 452.8 Mya and 443.1 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
5 occurrences of Brachyaspis on record, most of them in the Ordovician. 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
5 occurrences- Ordovician100%
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
5 formations
- Langara Formation1
- Husbergoya Shale Formation1
- White Head Formation1
- Boda Limestone Formation1
- Vaureal Formation1
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Brachyaspis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Brachyaspis and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Brachyaspis and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
243 taxa- Bellerophontida2 sites
- Beloitoceras2 sites
- Calymenidae2 sites
- Crinoidea2 sites
- Cymbularia2 sites
- Eochonetes2 sites
- Eoplectodonta2 sites
- Epitomyonia2 sites
- Holopea2 sites
- Leangella2 sites
- Leptaena2 sites
- Lonchodomas2 sites
- Loxonematoidea2 sites
- Onniella2 sites
- Serpulites2 sites
- Strophomena2 sites
- Toxochasmops2 sites
- Trepostomata2 sites
- Tretaspis2 sites
- Achatella schmidti1 site
- Acidaspis1 site
- Acidaspis bispinosa1 site
- Actinoceras anticostiense1 site
- Actinoceras carletonense1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Brachyaspis, 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
4 references- Ecological associations in a regressive sequence: the latest Ordovician of the Oslo-Asker district, Norway2
- New brachiopods and trilobites from the Ordovician of Perce, Quebec1
- Geology of Anticosti Island1
- The Trilobites of the Leptæna Limestone in Dalarne1
Each of the 5 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 Brachyaspis
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Brachyaspis was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itAsaphidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Salter 1866