Onychophora

Onychophora, commonly known as velvet worms, is a phylum of long, soft-bodied, many-legged animals. In appearance, they have variously been compared to worms with legs, caterpillars, and slugs. All living onychophorans prey upon other invertebrates, which they catch by ejecting an adhesive slime. Approximately 232 species of velvet worms have been described, although the true number is likely to be much greater.

Onychophora

Bruno Vellutini from São Paulo/São Sebastião, Brasil · 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
Also called
velvet wormPBDB
Sits inside
EcdysozoaPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 500 million years on record.

The record covers at least 521 Mya to 20.45 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 538.8 Mya to 13.82 Mya.

Cambrian — about 146 of 156 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 0 of 156 occurrencesSilurian — about 1 of 156 occurrencesDevonian — about 0 of 156 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 5 of 156 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 0 of 156 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 156 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 156 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 156 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 156 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 156 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 156 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 156 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 3 of 156 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 156 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 156 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 156 occurrencesMiocene — about 1 of 156 occurrencesPliocene — about 0 of 156 occurrences549–531 Mya — about 2 occurrences531–513 Mya — about 105 occurrences513–495 Mya — about 39 occurrences495–477 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences440–422 Mya — about 1 occurrence331–313 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences313–295 Mya — about 4 occurrences113–94 Mya — about 3 occurrences94–76 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences22–3.3 Mya — about 1 occurrence521 Mya20.45 Mya549 Mya3 Mya

156 occurrences of Onychophora 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

156 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

39 formations

Yuanshan — 25.68°N, 102.17°EYuanshan — 24.81°N, 102.58°EYuanshan — 24.84°N, 102.41°EYuanshan — 25.40°N, 103.38°EYuanshan — 25.72°N, 103.99°EYuanshan — 24.00°N, 102.00°EBurgess Shale — 51.44°N, 116.47°WBurgess Shale — 51.38°N, 116.43°WYu'anshan — 25.33°N, 103.50°EYu'anshan — 25.55°N, 102.40°EYu'anshan — 24.77°N, 102.58°EKuonamka — 70.74°N, 112.98°EKuonamka — 70.22°N, 113.70°EParara — 34.70°S, 137.71°EParara — 34.06°S, 138.02°EParara — 34.73°S, 137.63°EAjax Limestone — 30.59°S, 138.33°EDengying — 33.67°N, 109.46°EWirrapowie Limestone — 30.79°S, 139.14°EShuijingtuo — 32.51°N, 107.86°EShuijingtuo — 34.32°N, 108.70°EShabakty — 43.47°N, 69.87°EShabakty — 43.60°N, 69.45°ECarbondale — 41.22°N, 88.21°WCarbondale — 41.34°N, 88.39°WCarbondale — 41.00°N, 88.00°WCampito — 37.72°N, 117.33°WPuerto Blanco — 30.42°N, 111.93°WBastion — 74.10°N, 23.00°WBastion — 74.35°N, 22.77°WLower Comley — 52.56°N, 2.76°WMernmerna Formation — 31.00°S, 139.26°EMernmerna Formation — 31.01°S, 139.24°EMernmerna — 30.79°S, 139.14°EBrigus — 45.77°N, 60.29°WWeymouth — 41.95°N, 71.28°WKalmarsund Sandstone — 53.25°N, 12.65°EKalmarsund Sandstone — 54.57°N, 13.10°EParara Limestone — 34.92°S, 137.80°EBeshtash — 42.17°N, 72.00°EHongjingshao — 24.83°N, 102.83°EHenson Gletscher — 82.17°N, 39.67°WHenson Gletscher — 82.17°N, 40.40°W

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The named rock units Onychophora has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 15 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Onychophora and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Onychophora and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

1,779 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 122 sites for Onychophora, 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

54 references

Each of the 156 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. 42 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 Onychophora

Credit
Bruno Vellutini from São Paulo/São Sebastião, Brasil
Licence
CC BY-SA 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Onychophora 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 itEcdysozoa through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Grube 1853