Macrocheira

Macrocheira is a genus of crab in the superfamily Majoidea. It contains the Japanese spider crab as well as an extinct species, Macrocheira longirostra.

Macrocheira

Lycaon (Hans Hillewaert) · 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
MacrocheiridaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Decapoda
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Decapoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Malacostraca
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Malacostraca

Time the record covers

At least 44 million years on record.

The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 2.58 Mya.

Paleocene — about 0 of 16 occurrencesEocene — about 4 of 16 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 8 of 16 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 3 of 16 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 16 occurrencesPleistocene — about 0 of 16 occurrences57–55 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences55–53 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences53–52 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences52–50 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences50–48 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences39–37 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences37–35 Mya — about 2 occurrences35–33 Mya — about 1 occurrence33–31 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences31–29 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences29–27 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 2 occurrences26–24 Mya — about 2 occurrences24–22 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences22–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–18 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences18–16 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences16–14 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences13–11 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences5.2–3.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences3.4–1.5 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences48.07 Mya3.6 Mya57 Mya2 Mya

16 occurrences of Macrocheira on record, most of them in the Oligocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

16 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

Pysht — 48.18°N, 124.05°WPysht — 48.16°N, 123.96°WPysht — 48.17°N, 123.94°WKeasey — 46.00°N, 123.26°WKeasey — 45.77°N, 123.24°WTakanabe — 32.67°N, 131.47°EYonekawa — 35.42°N, 137.87°EGinzan — 38.55°N, 140.56°EHesquiat — 49.53°N, 126.57°WAstoria — 46.27°N, 123.68°WQuimper — 48.01°N, 122.72°WMargas de Pamplona — 42.47°N, 0.23°WMakah — 48.32°N, 124.47°WLookingglass — 42.56°N, 124.02°W

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The named rock units Macrocheira 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.

Macrocheira and its relatives

Oligocene

Where Macrocheira and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.

Found in the same rock

62 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Macrocheira, 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

9 references

Each of the 16 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 Macrocheira

Credit
Lycaon (Hans Hillewaert)
Licence
CC BY 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Macrocheira 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 itMacrocheiridae through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. De Haan 1839