Monoplacophora

Monoplacophora, meaning "bearing one plate", is a paraphyletic class of molluscs with a cap-like shell, inhabiting deep sea environments. Extant representatives were not recognized as such until 1952; previously they were known only from the fossil record, and were thought to have become extinct 375 million years ago.

Monoplacophora

FunkMonk · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
SerialiaPBDB
Diet
grazerPBDB
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB
Vision
blindPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 101 million years on record.

The record covers at least 521 Mya to 419.62 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 530.7 Mya to 393.47 Mya.

Cambrian — about 5 of 9 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 3 of 9 occurrencesOrdovicianSilurian — about 0 of 9 occurrencesDevonian — about 1 of 9 occurrencesDevonian533–529 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences529–524 Mya — about 1 occurrence524–519 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences519–514 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences514–510 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences510–505 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences495–491 Mya — about 1 occurrence476–472 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences472–467 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences453–448 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences448–443 Mya — about 1 occurrence424–419 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences419–415 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences415–410 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences410–405 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences405–400 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences400–395 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences395–391 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences521 Mya419.62 Mya533 Mya391 Mya

9 occurrences of Monoplacophora on record, most of them in the Cambrian. 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

9 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

6 formations

Scales — 43.52°N, 91.77°WDengying — 30.77°N, 111.32°EScenic Drive — 31.84°N, 106.48°WWaynesville — 39.41°N, 84.00°WChatsworth — 22.01°S, 140.30°EBalang — 28.42°N, 109.42°E

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The named rock units Monoplacophora has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Monoplacophora and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Monoplacophora and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

194 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Monoplacophora, 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

8 references

Each of the 9 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 content2

Picture of Monoplacophora

Credit
FunkMonk
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
MGRRE
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

MorphoSource 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 itSerialia through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Knight 1952