Dolichopterus

Dolichopterus is a genus of prehistoric sea scorpions, arthropods in the order Eurypterida. Fossils of Dolichopterus have been discovered in deposits ranging from Silurian to Devonian, and have been referred to several different species, some of them of dubious affinity to this genus.

Dolichopterus

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
DolichopteridaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Eurypterida
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Eurypterida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Eurypterida
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Eurypterida

Time the record covers

At least 396 million years on record.

The record covers at least 430.6 Mya to 33.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 432.9 Mya to 27.3 Mya.

Silurian — about 15 of 22 occurrencesDevonian — about 1 of 22 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 0 of 22 occurrencesPermian — about 0 of 22 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 22 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 4 of 22 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 1 of 22 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 22 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 22 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 22 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 22 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 22 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 22 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 22 occurrencesOligocene — about 1 of 22 occurrencesMiocene — about 0 of 22 occurrences441–427 Mya — about 2 occurrences427–413 Mya — about 14 occurrences413–399 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences244–230 Mya — about 4 occurrences216–202 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences202–188 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences47–33 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences33–19 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences430.6 Mya33.9 Mya441 Mya19 Mya

22 occurrences of Dolichopterus 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

22 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

10 formations

Fiddlers Green — 42.85°N, 78.80°WBertie — 43.45°N, 74.95°WBertie — 42.88°N, 78.88°WBertie Limestone — 42.98°N, 75.15°WTonoloway Limestone — 39.57°N, 78.84°WHolland Quarry Shale — 41.67°N, 83.55°WTemeside Shale — 52.37°N, 2.73°WHogklint — 57.57°N, 18.30°ETrochitenkalk — 49.33°N, 8.87°ETonoloway — 40.90°N, 76.89°WHögklint — 57.62°N, 18.27°E

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The named rock units Dolichopterus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Dolichopterus and its relatives

Silurian

Where Dolichopterus and its relatives were recorded in the Silurian.

Found in the same rock

176 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Dolichopterus, 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

9 references

Each of the 22 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 Dolichopterus

Credit
Jonathan Chen
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
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 itDolichopteridae through timeFormations of the SilurianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hall 1859