Merostomichnites
Merostomichnites is an ichnofossil genus, interpreted as a eurypterid trace. Traces produced by this large eurypterid were described from the Silurian and Lower Ordovician, and has been found in Portugal and Norway. The eurypterid trail was found by Hanken and Dr. J. Miller in 1971. The tracks found in Norway were likely made by Mixopterus kiaeri.
No picture of Merostomichnites was found. Wikipedia and Wikidata were searched and had none. iDigBio and GBIF were not searched: the Paleobiology Database does not place Merostomichnites firmly enough to tell it from something else bearing the same name, and a search on the name alone returns whichever of them was photographed. Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- IchnofossilsPBDB
Time the record covers
At least 92 million years on record.
The record covers at least 512.1 Mya to 419.62 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 521 Mya to 413.02 Mya.
4 occurrences of Merostomichnites 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
4 occurrencesThese 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
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The named rock units Merostomichnites has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Merostomichnites and its relatives
CambrianWhere Merostomichnites and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.
Found in the same rock
33 taxa- ? Olenichnus sp.1 site
- Anglaspis1 site
- Annelida1 site
- Bivalvia1 site
- Bunaia heintzi1 site
- Corvaspis1 site
- Ctenaspis1 site
- Dinaspidella1 site
- Diplichnites1 site
- Eurypterus1 site
- Gastropoda1 site
- Glockerichnus1 site
- Gordia1 site
- Guanshanichnus glockerichnoides1 site
- Homolaspidella sp.1 site
- Isochilina1 site
- Leperditia1 site
- Lingula1 site
- Palaeophycus1 site
- Phycodes1 site
- Plagiogmus1 site
- Planolites1 site
- Plantae1 site
- Poraspis1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Merostomichnites, 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
3 references- Downtonian [Silurian] Merostomata from Spitsbergen, with remarks on the suborder Synziphosura2
- A diverse ichnofauna from the Cambrian Stage 4 Wulongqing Formation near Kunming (Yunnan Province, South China)1
- Early Cambrian trace fossils from the Tal Formation of the Mussoorie Syncline, India1
Each of the 4 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 content0
No picture of Merostomichnites was found. Wikipedia and Wikidata were searched and had none.
iDigBio and GBIF were not searched: the Paleobiology Database does not place Merostomichnites firmly enough to tell it from something else bearing the same name, and a search on the name alone returns whichever of them was photographed.
Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.
No 3D scan of Merostomichnites 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 itIchnofossils through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Packard 1900