Flexicalymene
Searched as Flexicalymene declinata. The Paleobiology Database treats Flexicalymene as the accepted name.
Flexicalymene is a genus of trilobites belonging to the order Phacopida, suborder Calymenina and family Calymenidae. Flexicalymene specimens can be mistaken for Calymene, Gravicalymene, Diacalymene and a few other Calymenina genera. They are used as an index fossil in the Ordovician. Ohio and North America are particularly known for being rich with Flexicalymene fossils.

Micktherocktapper · 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
- FlexicalymeninaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Calymenidae
- Life habit
- nektobenthicPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Calymenidae
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Trilobita
Time the record covers
At most 4.9 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 450.1 Mya and 445.2 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Flexicalymene on record, most of them in the Ordovician. 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- Ordovician100%
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
1 formation
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Flexicalymene has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Flexicalymene and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Flexicalymene and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
1,439 taxa- Platystrophia64 sites
- Rafinesquina63 sites
- Isotelus57 sites
- Ambonychia53 sites
- Crinoidea50 sites
- Sowerbyella45 sites
- Bryozoa44 sites
- Zygospira44 sites
- Zygospira modesta44 sites
- Trepostomata43 sites
- Prasopora42 sites
- Hallopora40 sites
- Onniella37 sites
- Strophomena36 sites
- Ctenodonta34 sites
- Modiolopsis32 sites
- Cyclonema31 sites
- Rafinesquina alternata31 sites
- Sinuites31 sites
- Tallinnella31 sites
- Dalmanella30 sites
- Lophospira28 sites
- Trematis28 sites
- Chonetoidea iduna27 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 715 sites for Flexicalymene, and this reads 240 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
1 referenceEach 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 content2
Picture of Flexicalymene
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Micktherocktapper
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC0 Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
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 itFlexicalymeninae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Shirley 1936