Modocia

via iDigBio · CC0 · 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
- MarjumiidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Trilobita
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Trilobita
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Trilobita
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Marjumiidae
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Trilobita
Time the record covers
At least 7.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 504.5 Mya to 497 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 514.5 Mya to 486.85 Mya.
90 occurrences of Modocia 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
90 occurrences- Cambrian100%
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
24 formations
- Deadwood Formation24
- Holm Dal Formation · Tavsens Iskappe Group11
- Marjum Formation10
- Rabbitkettle Formation7
- Riley Formation6
- Wheeler Shale Formation4
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The named rock units Modocia 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.
Modocia and its relatives
CambrianWhere Modocia and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.
Found in the same rock
447 taxa- Dicellomus23 sites
- Bolaspidella17 sites
- Cedarina dakotaensis15 sites
- Kormagnostus seclusus15 sites
- Elrathia14 sites
- Hemirhodon14 sites
- Lingulella14 sites
- Cedaria12 sites
- Arapahoia11 sites
- Catillicephala rotunda11 sites
- Hyolithes11 sites
- Onchonotopsis11 sites
- Peronopsis11 sites
- Bynumia10 sites
- Olenoides10 sites
- Tomagnostella exsculpta10 sites
- Kormagnostus9 sites
- Marjumia9 sites
- Pearylandia9 sites
- Proagnostus bulbus9 sites
- Baltagnostus8 sites
- Conopolus granulus8 sites
- Micromitra8 sites
- Blountia7 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 73 sites for Modocia, 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
30 references- Trilobites from the Cedarina dakotaensis zone, lowermost part of the Deadwood Formation, (Marjuman Stage, Upper Cambrian), Black Hills South Dakota23
- Molluscs of the Holm Dal Formation (late Middle Cambrian), central North Greenland11
- The diverse radiodont fauna from the Marjum Formation of Utah, USA (Cambrian: Drumian)8
- Trilobites of the Marjuman and Steptoean stages (Upper Cambrian), Rabbitkettle Formation, southern Mackenzie Mountains, northwest Canada6
- The Faunas of the Riley Formation in Central Texas6
- A new, Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale-type biota, Bolaspidella zone, Chancellor Basin, southeastern British Columbia4
- unpublished data4
- Exceptionally preserved nontrilobite arthropods and Anomalocaris from the Middle Cambrian of Utah3
- Evenness, richness and the Cambrian-Paleozoic faunal transition in North America: an assemblage-level perspective2
- The evolutionary significance of Nisusia sulcata, an early articulate brachiopod2
- Upper Middle Cambrian stratigraphy of western Utah2
- Potential Global Standard Stratotype-section and Point (GSSP) for a Cambrian stage boundary defined by the first appearance of the trilobite Ptychagnostus atavus, Drum Mountains, Utah, USA1
Each of the 90 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. 18 further references are not listed. 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 Modocia
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itMarjumiidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Walcott 1924