Lonchocephalus

Lonchocephalus is an extinct genus from a well-known class of fossil marine arthropods, the trilobites. It lived from 501 to 490 million years ago during the Dresbachian faunal stage of the late Cambrian Period.

Lonchocephalus

via iDigBio · 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
LonchocephalidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Trilobita
Life habit
low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Trilobita
Motility
fast-movingPBDB, for Trilobita
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Lonchocephalidae
Environment
marinePBDB, for Trilobita

Time the record covers

At least 6.8 million years on record.

The record covers at least 497 Mya to 490.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 504.5 Mya to 486.85 Mya.

Cambrian — about 25 of 25 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 0 of 25 occurrences505–504 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences504–504 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences504–503 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences503–503 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences503–502 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences502–501 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences501–501 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences501–500 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences500–499 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences499–499 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences499–498 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences498–498 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences498–497 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences497–496 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences496–496 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences496–495 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences495–494 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences494–494 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences494–493 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences493–493 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences493–492 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences492–491 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences491–491 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences491–490 Mya — about 1 occurrence490–489 Mya — about 2 occurrences489–489 Mya — about 2 occurrences489–488 Mya — about 2 occurrences488–488 Mya — about 2 occurrences488–487 Mya — about 2 occurrences487–486 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences497 Mya490.2 Mya505 Mya486.4 Mya

25 occurrences of Lonchocephalus 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

25 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

11 formations

Keeseville — 44.50°N, 73.48°WKeeseville — 44.51°N, 73.33°WKeeseville — 43.56°N, 73.40°WKeeseville — 44.93°N, 74.08°WKeeseville — 44.05°N, 73.46°WKeeseville — 43.08°N, 73.86°WWarrior — 40.82°N, 77.93°WWarrior — 40.70°N, 78.12°WWarrior — 40.02°N, 78.45°WDresbach — 44.52°N, 89.57°WOrr — 38.80°N, 113.35°WOrr — 39.21°N, 113.32°WDuNoir Limestone — 43.29°N, 109.83°WRoad River — 66.42°N, 135.53°WRabbitkettle — 62.70°N, 128.38°WHoyt Limestone — 43.08°N, 73.86°WRiley — 30.64°N, 99.26°WWeeks — 39.22°N, 113.40°WBonneterre — 37.52°N, 90.78°W

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

Lonchocephalus and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Lonchocephalus and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

146 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 25 sites for Lonchocephalus, 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

10 references

Each of the 25 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 Lonchocephalus

Source
iDigBio
Credit
via iDigBio
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Lonchocephalus 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 itLonchocephalidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Owen 1852)