Jeffersonia

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
- BathyurinaePBDB
- Diet
- deposit feederPBDB, for Proetida
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Trilobita
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Trilobita
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Bathyuridae
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Trilobita
Time the record covers
At least 13 million years on record.
The record covers at least 481.7 Mya to 468 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 488.9 Mya to 457.3 Mya.
116 occurrences of Jeffersonia 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
116 occurrences- Cambrianunder 1%
- 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
15 formations
- Catoche Formation · St. George Group43
- Kindblade Formation37
- Boat Harbour Formation · St. George Group13
- Kirtonryggen Formation5
- Honeycut Formation · Ellenburger Group4
- Beauharnois Formation · Beekmantown Group3
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The named rock units Jeffersonia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Jeffersonia and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Jeffersonia and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
218 taxa- Bolbocephalus convexus34 sites
- Petigurus nero29 sites
- Bathyurellus abruptus21 sites
- Isoteloides peri21 sites
- Benthamaspis conica18 sites
- Ischyrotoma anataphra17 sites
- Uromystrum affine15 sites
- Strigigenalis caudata14 sites
- Catochia ornata12 sites
- Euchasma blumenbachi11 sites
- Ischyrotoma10 sites
- Punka flabelliformis10 sites
- Strotactinus insularis10 sites
- Benthamaspis9 sites
- Bolbocephalus9 sites
- Grinnellaspis newfoundlandensis9 sites
- Benthamaspis gibberula8 sites
- Ischyrotoma sila8 sites
- Isoteloides canalis8 sites
- Petigurus8 sites
- Petigurus groenlandicus8 sites
- Strigigenalis brevicaudata8 sites
- Bathyurellus platypus7 sites
- Benthamaspis rhochmotis7 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 92 sites for Jeffersonia, 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
27 references- Trilobite biostratigraphy and correlation of the Kindblade Formation (Lower Ordovician) of Carter and Kiowa Counties, Oklahoma38
- Early Ordovician trilobite faunas of the Boat Harbour and Catoche Formations (St. George Group) in the Boat-Harbour-Cape Norman area, Great Northern Peninsula, western Newfoundland13
- The rostroconch mollusc Euchasma Billings, 1865 from the Lower Ordovician Catoche Formation, western Newfoundland10
- Trilobite and Conodont Biostratigraphy of the St. George Group, Eddies Cove west area, Western Newfoundland7
- Lower Ordovician trilobites of the Kirtonryggen Formation, Spitsbergen5
- Ordovician biostratigraphic investigations, Great Northern Peninsula, western Newfoundland5
- Cambrian-Ordovician biostratigraphic investigations, Great Northern Peninsula, western Newfoundland5
- Preliminary Ordovician trilobite stratigraphy of the Eddies Cove West-Port au Choix area, western Newfoundland4
- Macropaleontological investigation of the Upper St. George Group, West Isthmus Bay to East Bay section, Port au Port Peninsula, Western Newfoundland3
- The upper St. George Group, western Port au Port Penensula: lithostratigraphy, biostratigraphy, depositional environments and regional implications3
- Fauna of the lower Beauharnois Formation (Beekmantown Group, Lower Ordovician), Grand île, Quebec3
- Lower Ordovician trilobites from western Utah and eastern Nevadea3
Each of the 116 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. 15 further references are not listed. 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 Jeffersonia
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Jeffersonia 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itBathyurinae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Poulson 1927