Olenus
Olenus is a genus of Upper Cambrian ptychopariid trilobite.

Dwergenpaartje · 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
- OlenidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Trilobita
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Trilobita
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Trilobita
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Olenidae
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Trilobita
Time the record covers
At least 3.2 million years on record.
The record covers at least 494.2 Mya to 491 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 538.8 Mya to 486.85 Mya.
65 occurrences of Olenus 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
65 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
18 formations
- Alum Shale Formation16
- Huaqiao Formation11
- Zhumabai Formation8
- Nopah Formation5
- Tybo Shale Formation2
- Dunderberg Formation2
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The named rock units Olenus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Olenus and its relatives
CambrianWhere Olenus and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.
Found in the same rock
133 taxa- Homagnostus obesus10 sites
- Homagnostus5 sites
- Acrotretida4 sites
- Aphelotoxon acuminata4 sites
- Dunderbergia4 sites
- Erixanium multisegmentus4 sites
- Pseudagnostus4 sites
- Pseudagnostus communis4 sites
- Cernuolimbus granulosus3 sites
- Dunderbergia polybothra3 sites
- Elvinia roemeri3 sites
- Irvingella major3 sites
- Pterocephalia punctata3 sites
- Sigmocheilus3 sites
- Simulolenus quadrisulcatus3 sites
- Stenambon3 sites
- Agnostus pisiformis2 sites
- Anechocephalus spinosus2 sites
- Aphelotoxon2 sites
- Cernuolimbus orygmatos2 sites
- Cheilocephalus brachyops2 sites
- Dunderbergia bigranulosa2 sites
- Elburgia granulosa2 sites
- Elburgia quinnensis2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 38 sites for Olenus, 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
22 references- Biostratigraphy of the Furongian (upper Cambrian) Alum Shale Formation at Degerhamn, Öland, Sweden12
- Corynexochida, Lichida and Asaphida9
- Trilobites of the Late Cambrian Pterocephaliid Biomere in the Great Basin, United States9
- Cambrian Malyy Karatau Range, Kazakhstan8
- Trilobites of the Upper Cambrian Dunderberg Shale, Eureka District, Nevada4
- Upper Cambrian trilobite biostratigraphy and taphonomy at Kakeled on Kinnekulle, Västergötland, Sweden3
- Late Late Cambrian trilobites from near Birch Inlet, south-western Tasmania2
- Upper Cambrian biostratigraphy and trilobite faunas of the Cili-Taoyuan area, northwestern Hunan, China2
- Day 2: Late Cambrian and Early Ordovician stratigraphy, biostratigraphy and depositional environments, Hot Creek Range, Nevada2
- Outer shelf communities and trophic groups in the Upper Cambrian of the Great Basin2
- First cladistic analysis of the trilobite family Olenidae from the Furongian and Ordovician1
- Legend of the Central European series of sheets of the State Geological Map of the Russian Federation, scale 1:1,000,000 (third generation)1
Each of the 65 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. 10 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 Olenus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Dwergenpaartje
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
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 itOlenidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Dalman 1827)