Mixopterus

Mixopterus is a genus of eurypterid, an extinct group of aquatic arthropods. Fossils of Mixopterus have been discovered in deposits from Late Silurian age, and have been referred to several different species. Fossils have been recovered from two continents; Europe and North America. Mixopterus is the sole known representative of the eurypterid family Mixopteridae.

Mixopterus

Pavel Bochkov from Moscow, Russia · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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
MixopteridaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Eurypterida
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Eurypterida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Eurypterida
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Eurypterida

Time the record covers

At least 7.9 million years on record.

The record covers at least 430.6 Mya to 422.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 432.9 Mya to 419.62 Mya.

Silurian — about 12 of 12 occurrencesSilurianDevonian — about 0 of 12 occurrences433–432 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences432–432 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences432–431 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences431–431 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences431–431 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences431–430 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences430–430 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences430–429 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences429–429 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences429–428 Mya — about 1 occurrence428–428 Mya — about 1 occurrence428–427 Mya — about 1 occurrence427–427 Mya — about 1 occurrence427–426 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences426–426 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences426–425 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences425–425 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences425–424 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences424–424 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences424–423 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences423–423 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences423–422 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences422–422 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences422–422 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences422–421 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences421–421 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences421–420 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences420–420 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences430.6 Mya422.7 Mya433.4 Mya419.1 Mya

12 occurrences of Mixopterus on record, most of them in the Silurian. 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

12 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

7 formations

Sundvollen — 60.17°N, 10.30°ESundvollen — 59.92°N, 10.75°EVernon Shale — 43.08°N, 77.52°WSteinsfjorden — 60.17°N, 10.30°EVernon — 43.04°N, 75.59°WTemeside Shale — 52.37°N, 2.73°WRootsikula — 58.42°N, 22.50°ESintan Shale — 31.00°N, 112.00°E

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The named rock units Mixopterus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Mixopterus and its relatives

Silurian

Where Mixopterus and its relatives were recorded in the Silurian.

Found in the same rock

117 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Mixopterus, 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

Each of the 12 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Mixopterus

Credit
Pavel Bochkov from Moscow, Russia
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Mixopterus was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itMixopteridae through timeFormations of the SilurianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ruedemann 1921