Hallucigenia

Hallucigenia is a genus of lobopodian known from Cambrian-aged fossils in Burgess Shale-type deposits in Canada and China, and from isolated spines around the world. The generic name reflects the type species' unusual appearance and eccentric history of study; when it was erected as a genus, H. sparsa was reconstructed as an enigmatic animal upside down and back to front. Lobopodians are a grade of Paleozoic panarthropods from which the velvet worms, water bears, and arthropods arose.

Hallucigenia

Han Zeng · CC0 · 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
HallucigeniidaePBDB
Diet
grazerPBDB
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB
Vision
limitedPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 6.3 million years on record.

The record covers at least 516 Mya to 509.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 538.8 Mya to 505.3 Mya.

Cambrian — about 26 of 26 occurrencesCambrian539–538 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences538–537 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences537–536 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences536–535 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences535–534 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences534–533 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences533–531 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences531–530 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences530–529 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences529–528 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences528–527 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences527–526 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences526–524 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences524–523 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences523–522 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences522–521 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences521–520 Mya — about 2 occurrences520–519 Mya — about 2 occurrences519–517 Mya — about 2 occurrences517–516 Mya — about 2 occurrences516–515 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences515–514 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences514–513 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences513–512 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences512–510 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences510–509 Mya — about 2 occurrences509–508 Mya — about 4 occurrences508–507 Mya — about 4 occurrences507–506 Mya — about 4 occurrences506–505 Mya — about 2 occurrences516 Mya509.7 Mya539.5 Mya504.6 Mya

26 occurrences of Hallucigenia 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

26 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

Burgess Shale — 51.44°N, 116.47°WBurgess Shale — 51.38°N, 116.43°WYuanshan — 24.81°N, 102.58°EYuanshan — 24.84°N, 102.41°EYu'anshan — 24.77°N, 102.58°EHongjingshao — 24.83°N, 102.83°EWulongqing — 24.93°N, 102.82°EBalang — 28.42°N, 109.42°E

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

Hallucigenia and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Hallucigenia and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

409 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 20 sites for Hallucigenia, 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 26 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 content2

Picture of Hallucigenia

Credit
Han Zeng
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access 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 itHallucigeniidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Conway Morris 1977