Isotelus megistos

via iDigBio · CC0 · via iDigBio. 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
- IsotelusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Trilobita
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Asaphida
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Asaphida
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Asaphidae
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Trilobita
Time the record covers
At most 4.7 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 450.2 Mya and 445.5 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
3 occurrences of Isotelus megistos 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
3 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
3 formations
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The named rock units Isotelus megistos has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Isotelus megistos and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Isotelus megistos and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
133 taxa- Bythopora2 sites
- Cincinnetina meeki2 sites
- Cymatonota2 sites
- Cyrtodonta2 sites
- Diplograptus2 sites
- Hallopora2 sites
- Isotelus maximus2 sites
- Lophospira perangulata2 sites
- Paupospira tropidophora2 sites
- Rhytimya2 sites
- Zygospira modesta2 sites
- Aechmina1 site
- Ambonychia1 site
- Ambonychia alata1 site
- Amplexopora1 site
- Anomalodonta1 site
- Aparchites1 site
- Archinacella rugatina1 site
- Arthraria biclavata1 site
- Batostoma1 site
- Beatricea nodulosa1 site
- Beatricea undulata1 site
- Berenicea1 site
- Bollia1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Isotelus megistos, 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
3 references- The fossil fauna of the Ordovician in the Cincinnati Region1
- The paleontology and stratigraphy of the upper Martinsburg formation of Massanutten Mountain, Virginia1
- Upper Ordovician faunas of Ontario and Quebec1
Each of the 3 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 content1

Picture of Isotelus megistos
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Isotelus megistos 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itIsotelus through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Locke 1842