Dickinsonia

Dickinsonia is a genus of extinct organism that lived during the late Ediacaran period in what is now Australia, China, Russia, Canada and Ukraine. It had a round, approximately bilaterally symmetric body with multiple segments running along it. It could range from a few millimeters to over a meter in length, and likely lived in shallow waters, feeding on the microbial mats that dominated the seascape at the time.

A picture published with the record for Dickinsonia. What it shows has not been checked.

Ghedoghedo · 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
DickinsoniomorphaPBDB
Diet
osmotrophPBDB
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB
Motility
slow-movingPBDB
Environment
inner shelf,marinePBDB

Time the record covers

At most 97 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 635 Mya and 538.8 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Cambrian — about 0 of 61 occurrences637–634 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences634–630 Mya — about 2 occurrences630–627 Mya — about 2 occurrences627–624 Mya — about 2 occurrences624–620 Mya — about 2 occurrences620–617 Mya — about 2 occurrences617–614 Mya — about 2 occurrences614–610 Mya — about 2 occurrences610–607 Mya — about 2 occurrences607–604 Mya — about 2 occurrences604–600 Mya — about 2 occurrences600–597 Mya — about 2 occurrences597–594 Mya — about 2 occurrences594–590 Mya — about 2 occurrences590–587 Mya — about 2 occurrences587–584 Mya — about 2 occurrences584–580 Mya — about 2 occurrences580–577 Mya — about 2 occurrences577–574 Mya — about 2 occurrences574–570 Mya — about 2 occurrences570–567 Mya — about 2 occurrences567–564 Mya — about 2 occurrences564–560 Mya — about 2 occurrences560–557 Mya — about 2 occurrences557–554 Mya — about 2 occurrences554–550 Mya — about 2 occurrences550–547 Mya — about 2 occurrences547–544 Mya — about 2 occurrences544–540 Mya — about 2 occurrences540–537 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences637 Mya537 Mya

61 occurrences of Dickinsonia on record. 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

61 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

14 formations

Rawnsley Quartzite — 31.67°S, 138.80°ERawnsley Quartzite — 31.23°S, 138.53°ERawnsley Quartzite — 31.45°S, 138.53°ERawnsley Quartzite — 30.97°S, 138.18°ERawnsley Quartzite — 30.51°S, 138.15°ERawnsley Quartzite — 30.85°S, 138.13°ERawnsley Quartzite — 31.32°S, 138.50°ERawnsley Quartzite — 30.79°S, 138.14°EVerkhovka — 63.92°N, 38.08°EVerkhovka — 64.43°N, 39.56°EVerkhovka — 65.55°N, 39.77°EVerkhovka — 64.63°N, 39.22°EVerkhovka — 64.72°N, 38.92°EBlueflower — 64.67°N, 132.00°WMezen' — 64.38°N, 40.65°EZimnie Gory — 65.55°N, 39.77°ELamtsa — 64.44°N, 37.06°ELamtsa — 64.37°N, 38.34°EChernyi Kamen — 58.08°N, 58.85°EKauriyala — 30.62°N, 77.66°EYorga — 65.70°N, 40.18°EDengying — 30.79°N, 111.05°EMohyliv — 48.57°N, 27.48°EZimnegory — 65.47°N, 39.75°EErga — 64.43°N, 39.56°ECherny Kamen — 58.02°N, 58.67°E

Loading coastlines…

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

Found in the same rock

140 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 48 sites for Dickinsonia, 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

25 references

Each of the 61 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. 13 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 content3

Picture of Dickinsonia

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

Laser scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Dickinsonia costata · SAMA:Paleontology:P40135

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itDickinsoniomorpha through time

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Sprigg 1947