Macrogrammus
Macrogrammus is an extinct genus from a well-known class of fossil marine arthropods, the trilobites. It lived during the early part of the Arenig stage of the Ordovician Period, a faunal stage which lasted from approximately 478 to 471 million years ago. Its fossil name is Macrogrammus scylfense Whittard named after its British Collector WF Whittard in 1966.

via GBIF · CC BY-NC 4.0 · via GBIF. 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
- PilekiinaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Cheiruridae
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Trilobita
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Trilobita
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Pilekiinae
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Trilobita
Time the record covers
At most 9.1 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 477.1 Mya and 468 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Macrogrammus 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
1 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
1 formation
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Macrogrammus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Macrogrammus and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Macrogrammus and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
31 taxa- Anebolithus1 site
- Apsotreta1 site
- Asaphellus1 site
- Astraborthis1 site
- Bergamia1 site
- Cnemidopyge1 site
- Cyclopyge1 site
- Dalmanella1 site
- Desmorthis1 site
- Diparelasma1 site
- Ectillaenus1 site
- Euorthisina1 site
- Hesperonomia1 site
- Lordshillia1 site
- Monobolina1 site
- Myttonia1 site
- Neseuretus1 site
- Nocturnellia1 site
- Obolus1 site
- Orthambonites1 site
- Orthis1 site
- Oslogonites1 site
- Palaeoglossa1 site
- Paterula1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Macrogrammus, 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
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Macrogrammus
- Source
- GBIF
- Credit
- via GBIF
- Licence
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence does not allow it
No 3D scan of Macrogrammus 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 itPilekiinae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Whittard 1966