Gaojiashania

Gaojiashania cyclus is an extinct fossil worm-like, soft bodied organism known from the Ediacaran of China and North America. Composed of repeating ring-like units, G. cyclus is flexible, soft, and not easily preserved. Pyritization prior to decay of soft parts results in the well preserved casts and molds we see today. It probably had an epibenthic mode of life.

No picture of Gaojiashania was found. Wikipedia and Wikidata were searched and had none. iDigBio and GBIF were not searched: the Paleobiology Database does not place Gaojiashania firmly enough to tell it from something else bearing the same name, and a search on the name alone returns whichever of them was photographed. Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
AnimaliaPBDB

Time the record covers

At most 114 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 635 Mya and 521 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Cambrian — about 1 of 14 occurrencesCambrian637–633 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences633–629 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences629–625 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences625–621 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences621–618 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences618–614 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences614–610 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences610–606 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences606–602 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences602–598 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences598–594 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences594–590 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences590–586 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences586–582 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences582–578 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences578–574 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences574–570 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences570–566 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences566–562 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences562–558 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences558–554 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences554–550 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences550–546 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences546–542 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences542–538 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences538–535 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences535–531 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences531–527 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences527–523 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences523–519 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences637 Mya519 Mya

14 occurrences of Gaojiashania 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

14 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

6 formations

Dengying — 32.95°N, 106.45°EDengying — 32.94°N, 106.45°EDengying — 32.98°N, 106.47°EDeep Spring — 37.35°N, 117.32°WWood Canyon — 36.43°N, 116.08°WLontova — 59.43°N, 24.76°EZaris — 25.50°S, 16.30°EAim — 59.48°N, 136.00°E

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

Gaojiashania and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Gaojiashania and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

29 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Gaojiashania, 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

7 references

Each of the 14 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 content0

No picture of Gaojiashania was found. Wikipedia and Wikidata were searched and had none.

iDigBio and GBIF were not searched: the Paleobiology Database does not place Gaojiashania firmly enough to tell it from something else bearing the same name, and a search on the name alone returns whichever of them was photographed.

Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.

No 3D scan of Gaojiashania 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 itAnimalia through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Yang et al. 1986