Herpetogaster

Herpetogaster is an extinct cambroernid genus of animal from the Early Cambrian Chengjiang biota of China, Balang Formation of China, Pioche Formation of Nevada and Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of Canada containing the species Herpetogaster collinsi and Herpetogaster haiyanensis.

A picture published with the record for Herpetogaster. What it shows has not been checked.

Jean-Bernard Caron, Simon Conway Morris, Degan Shu · CC BY 2.5 · 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
CambroernidaPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 45 million years on record.

The record covers at least 514.5 Mya to 469.4 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 521 Mya to 458.2 Mya.

Cambrian — about 5 of 6 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 1 of 6 occurrencesOrdovician522–520 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences520–518 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences518–516 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences516–514 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences514–511 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences511–509 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences509–507 Mya — about 2 occurrences507–505 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences470–468 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences468–466 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences466–463 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences463–461 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences461–459 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences459–457 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences514.5 Mya469.4 Mya522 Mya457 Mya

6 occurrences of Herpetogaster 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

6 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

5 formations

Burgess Shale — 51.43°N, 116.47°WGilwern Volcanic — 52.24°N, 3.38°WParker — 44.73°N, 73.15°WBalang — 28.42°N, 109.42°EChiungchussu — 24.81°N, 102.77°E

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

Herpetogaster and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Herpetogaster and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

169 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Herpetogaster, 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

Each of the 6 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 Herpetogaster

Credit
Jean-Bernard Caron, Simon Conway Morris, Degan Shu
Licence
CC BY 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Herpetogaster was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

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 itCambroernida through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Caron et al. 2010