Emeraldella

Emeraldella is a genus of arthropod known from the Middle Cambrian of North America. The type species E. brocki was described in 1912 from the Burgess Shale. 21 specimens of Emeraldella are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise < 0.1% of the community. A re-study on the species was done in 2012. A second species E. brutoni is known from the Wheeler Shale, which was described in 2011. An additional specimen of E. brutoni was described in 2019, which revealed more of the anatomy. It has been placed as a basal member of the clade Vicissicaudata within Artiopoda, a group of arthropods containing trilobites and their relatives.

Emeraldella

Charles Doolittle Walcott · 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
VicissicaudataPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB

Time the record covers

At least 800 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 505.3 Mya to 504.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 509.7 Mya to 497 Mya.

Cambrian — about 11 of 11 occurrencesCambrian510–509 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences509–509 Mya — about 1 occurrence509–508 Mya — about 1 occurrence508–508 Mya — about 1 occurrence508–507 Mya — about 1 occurrence507–507 Mya — about 1 occurrence507–507 Mya — about 1 occurrence507–506 Mya — about 1 occurrence506–506 Mya — about 1 occurrence506–505 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences505–504 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences504–504 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences504–503 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences503–503 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences503–502 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences502–502 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences502–502 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences502–501 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences501–501 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences501–500 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences500–500 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences500–499 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences499–499 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences499–498 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences498–498 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences498–497 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences497–497 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences505.3 Mya – 504.5 Mya510.2 Mya496.5 Mya

11 occurrences of Emeraldella 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

11 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

Burgess Shale — 51.44°N, 116.47°WMarjum — 39.00°N, 113.00°W

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

Emeraldella and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Emeraldella and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

141 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Emeraldella, 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 11 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 Emeraldella

Credit
Charles Doolittle Walcott
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Emeraldella was found in Smithsonian Open Access and Sketchfab.

MorphoSource 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 itVicissicaudata through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Walcott 1912