Habelia
Habelia is a genus of extinct arthropods from the Middle Cambrian, thought to be one of the earliest known relatives of chelicerates. Its fossils have been found in the Burgess Shale in British Columbia, Canada. Fifty-four specimens of Habelia are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise 0.1% of the community.

Cédric Aria & Jean-Bernard Caron · CC BY 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
- ArthropodaPBDB
- 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.
15 occurrences of Habelia 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
15 occurrences- Cambrian100%
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
3 formations
- Burgess Shale Formation · Chancellor Group13
- Duchesnay Formation1
- Stephen Formation1
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Habelia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Habelia and its relatives
CambrianWhere Habelia and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.
Found in the same rock
183 taxa- Liangshanella11 sites
- Canadaspis perfecta10 sites
- Diraphora10 sites
- Ehmaniella burgessensis10 sites
- Hazelia10 sites
- Marrella splendens10 sites
- Naraoia compacta10 sites
- Ottoia prolifica10 sites
- Pentagnostus praecurrens10 sites
- Perspicaris10 sites
- Selkirkia columbia10 sites
- Sidneyia10 sites
- Wiwaxia corrugata10 sites
- Burgessia9 sites
- Haplophrentis carinatus9 sites
- Laggania9 sites
- Lingulella9 sites
- Molaria9 sites
- Morania9 sites
- Scenella amii9 sites
- Takakkawia lineata9 sites
- Trilobita9 sites
- Waptia fieldensis9 sites
- Yohoia9 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Habelia, 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
5 references- Paleoecology of the Greater Phyllopod Bed community, Burgess Shale11
- Paleocommunity analysis of the Burgess Shale Tulip Beds, Mount Stephen, British Columbia: Comparison with the Walcott Quarry and implications for community variation in the Burgess Shale1
- A new phyllopod bed-like assemblage from the Burgess Shale of the Canadian Rockies1
- A new, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale-type biota, Bolaspidella zone, Chancellor Basin, southeastern British Columbia1
- Palaeontology and depositional environments of ancient brine seeps in the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale at The Monarch, British Columbia, Canada1
Each of the 15 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 doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Habelia
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Cédric Aria & Jean-Bernard Caron
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Habelia 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Habelia”
- 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 itArthropoda through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.