Cardiodictyon
Cardiodictyon is a genus of lobopodian known from 518 millions years old Chengjiang Lagerstätte. 525 millions years old partial fossil is also reported.

Jonathan Chen · CC BY-SA 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
- HallucigeniidaePBDB
- Diet
- grazerPBDB
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB
- Vision
- limitedPBDB
Time the record covers
At most 6.5 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 521 Mya and 514.5 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
12 occurrences of Cardiodictyon on record, most of them in the Cambrian. 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
12 occurrences- Cambrian100%
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
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Cardiodictyon has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Cardiodictyon and its relatives
CambrianWhere Cardiodictyon and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.
Found in the same rock
226 taxa- Heliomedusa orienta9 sites
- Kunmingella douvillei9 sites
- Leanchoilia illecebrosa9 sites
- Mafangscolex sinensis8 sites
- Misszhouia longicaudata8 sites
- Cricocosmia jinningensis7 sites
- Eoredlichia intermediata7 sites
- Isoxys auritus7 sites
- Selkirkia sinica7 sites
- Corynetis brevis6 sites
- Eoglossa chengjiangensis6 sites
- Lingulellotreta malongensis6 sites
- Sicyophorus rara6 sites
- Amplectobelua symbrachiata5 sites
- Branchiocaris yunnanensis5 sites
- Diandongia pista5 sites
- Eldonia5 sites
- Hazelia5 sites
- Naraoia5 sites
- Naraoia spinosa5 sites
- Saetaspongia densa5 sites
- Vetulicola5 sites
- Yunnanocephalus yunnanensis5 sites
- Cambrorhytium4 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Cardiodictyon, 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
6 references- Taphonomy and Palaeoecology of the Early Cambrian Chengjiang Biota from Eastern Yunnan, China4
- Diversity and species abundance patterns of the early Cambrian (Series 2, Stage 3) Chengjiang Biota from China3
- Community palaeoecology of the early Cambrian Maotianshan Shale biota: Ecological dominance of priapulid worms2
- Spatial variation in the diversity and composition of the Lower Cambrian (Series 2, Stage 3) Chengjiang Biota, Southwest China1
- Lower Cambrian Burgess Shale-type fossil associations of South China1
- Early Cambrian Chengjiang fauna in eastern Yunnan, CHina1
Each of the 12 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 Cardiodictyon
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Jonathan Chen
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Cardiodictyon 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.
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 itHallucigeniidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.