Kampecaris

Kampecaris is an extinct genus comprising the Kampecarida, an enigmatic group of millipede-like arthropods, from the Silurian and early Devonian periods of Scotland and England. They are among the oldest known land-dwelling animals. They were small, short-bodied animals with three recognizable sections: an oval head divided along the midline, ten limb-bearing segments forming a cylindrical trunk that tapered slightly towards the front, and a characteristic swollen tail formed by a modified segment that tapers at its rear into an "anal segment". The cuticle forming their exoskeletons was thick, heavily calcified, and composed of two layers.

Kampecaris

Uncredited · 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
ArchipolypodaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda

Time the record covers

At most 13 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 422.7 Mya and 410.62 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Silurian — about 1 of 7 occurrencesSilurianDevonian — about 6 of 7 occurrencesDevonian423–422 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences422–422 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences422–421 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences421–421 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences421–421 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences421–420 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences420–420 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences420–419 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences419–419 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences419–418 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences418–418 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences418–418 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences418–417 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences417–417 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences417–416 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences416–416 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences416–415 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences415–415 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences415–414 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences414–414 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences414–414 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences414–413 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences413–413 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences413–412 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences412–412 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences412–411 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences411–411 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences411–411 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences423.2 Mya410.1 Mya

7 occurrences of Kampecaris on record, most of them in the Devonian. 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

7 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

3 formations

Dundee Flagstone — 56.48°N, 3.12°WDundee Flagstone — 56.77°N, 2.48°WDundee Flagstone — 56.67°N, 2.79°WDundee — 56.67°N, 2.79°WDundee — 56.77°N, 2.48°WDownton Castle Sandstone — 51.37°N, 2.73°W

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The named rock units Kampecaris 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.

Kampecaris and its relatives

Devonian

Where Kampecaris and its relatives were recorded in the Devonian.

Found in the same rock

6 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Kampecaris, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

4 references

Each of the 7 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 Kampecaris

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Kampecaris 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 itArchipolypoda through timeFormations of the DevonianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Page 1856