Buffalopterus

Buffalopterus is a prehistoric eurypterid from the Silurian-aged Bertie Formation of New York and Ontario. The genus contains one species, B. pustulosus. It is closely related to Strobilopterus, but differs primarily by having a bizarre, globular telson, and in size, being estimated to be around 1 metre (3.3 ft), although later study show size estimation of 30 centimetres (12 in).

Buffalopterus

John Mason Clarke (1857-1925) and Rudolf Ruedemann (1864-1956) · Public Domain · 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
StrobilopteridaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Eurypterida
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Eurypterida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Eurypterida
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Eurypterida

Time the record covers

At most 3.1 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 422.7 Mya and 419.62 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Silurian — about 2 of 2 occurrencesSilurianDevonian — about 0 of 2 occurrences423–423 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences423–423 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences423–422 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences422–422 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences422–422 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences422–422 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences422–422 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences422–422 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences422–422 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences422–421 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences421–421 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences421–421 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences421–421 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences421–421 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences421–421 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences421–421 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences421–420 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences420–420 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences420–420 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences420–420 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences420–420 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences420–420 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences420–420 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences420–420 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences423.2 Mya419.12 Mya

2 occurrences of Buffalopterus on record, most of them in the Silurian. 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

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

Fiddlers Green — 42.85°N, 78.80°WBertie — 42.88°N, 78.88°W

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

Buffalopterus and its relatives

Silurian

Where Buffalopterus and its relatives were recorded in the Silurian.

Found in the same rock

82 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Buffalopterus, 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

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 content1

Picture of Buffalopterus

Credit
John Mason Clarke (1857-1925) and Rudolf Ruedemann (1864-1956)
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itStrobilopteridae through timeFormations of the SilurianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Kjellesvig-Waering and Heubusch 1962