Nanshanaspis

Nanshanaspis is a genus of asaphid trilobites of the family Raphiophoridae that lived during the late Caradoc of Inner Mongolia, China. Like all raphiophorids it is blind, with a headshield that is subsemicircular, carrying genal spines and a forward directed spine on the central raised area, with the front of the glabella inflated and the natural fracture lines of the cephalon coinciding with its margin. It is easily distinguished from most other raphiophorids by the 3 thorax segments. Pseudampyxina, Taklamakania, and Kongqiaoheia also have only 3 such segments, while all other raphiophorid genera have at least 5 thorax segments, leading to the erection of the subfamily "Taklamakaniinae" to contain these four genera. "Taklamakaniinae" was dissolved and its members absorbed into Raphiophorinae when further study showed the close similarities the "taklamakaniids" had to the juvenile forms of various raphiophorinids. Specimens of Nanshanaspis, for example, closely resemble juveniles of Globampyx trinucleoides.

Nanshanaspis

Apokryltaros · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
RaphiophoridaePBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB, for Raphiophoridae
Life habit
low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Trilobita
Motility
fast-movingPBDB, for Trilobita
Vision
blindPBDB, for Raphiophoridae
Environment
marinePBDB, for Trilobita

Time the record covers

At most 13 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 458.2 Mya and 445.2 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Ordovician — about 10 of 10 occurrencesOrdovician458–458 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences458–457 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences457–457 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences457–456 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences456–456 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences456–455 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences455–455 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences455–455 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences455–454 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences454–454 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences454–453 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences453–453 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences453–452 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences452–452 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences452–451 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences451–451 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences451–450 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences450–450 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences450–449 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences449–449 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences449–448 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences448–448 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences448–448 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences448–447 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences447–447 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences447–446 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences446–446 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences446–445 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences458.7 Mya444.7 Mya

10 occurrences of Nanshanaspis 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

10 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

2 formations

Saergan — 40.64°N, 79.50°EKopkurgan — 44.82°N, 74.03°EKopkurgan — 44.95°N, 73.78°E

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The named rock units Nanshanaspis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Nanshanaspis and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Nanshanaspis and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

41 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Nanshanaspis, 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 10 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 content1

Picture of Nanshanaspis

Credit
Apokryltaros
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Nanshanaspis 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 itRaphiophoridae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Zhang and Fan 1960