Phalangiotarbida
Phalangiotarbida is an extinct arachnid order first recorded from the Early Devonian of Germany and most widespread in the Upper Carboniferous coal measures of Europe and North America. The last species are known from the early Permian Rotliegend of Germany.

Russell J. Garwood and Jason Dunlop · 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- Also called
- phalangiotarbidPBDB
- Sits inside
- ArachnidaPBDB
- Life habit
- solitaryPBDB, for Arachnida
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arachnida
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Arachnida
Time the record covers
At least 111 million years on record.
The record covers at least 410.62 Mya to 298.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 413.02 Mya to 293.52 Mya.
55 occurrences of Phalangiotarbida on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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
55 occurrences- Devonian11%
- Carboniferous87%
- Permian2%
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
15 formations
- Carbondale Formation · Kewanee Group23
- Kladno Formation3
- Siegen Formation3
- Klerf Formation2
- Flöz Zweibänke Formation1
- Henryetta Coal Formation1
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The named rock units Phalangiotarbida has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 13 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Phalangiotarbida and its relatives
CarboniferousWhere Phalangiotarbida and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.
Found in the same rock
344 taxa- Architarbus rotundatus6 sites
- Devonotarbus hombachensis6 sites
- Aphantomartus pustulatus5 sites
- Anthracomartus priesti4 sites
- Eoscorpius carbonarius4 sites
- Eucaenus ovalis4 sites
- Goniotarbus tuberculatus4 sites
- Liomesaspis laevis4 sites
- Plesiosiro madeleyi4 sites
- Pleurojulus biornatus4 sites
- Acantherpestes major3 sites
- Anthracomartus hindi3 sites
- Compsoscorpius buthiformis3 sites
- Euphoberia armigera3 sites
- Euphoberia granosa3 sites
- Euproops danae3 sites
- Kustarachne tenuipes3 sites
- Miamia bronsoni3 sites
- Palaeocampa anthrax3 sites
- Weygoldtina anglica3 sites
- Adiphlebia lacoana2 sites
- Anthracomartus2 sites
- Archaeometa nephilina2 sites
- Archimylacris acadica2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 32 sites for Phalangiotarbida, 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
24 references- A monograph of the terrestrial Palaeozoic Arachnida of North America10
- Palaeozoic Arachnida of Illinois. An enquiry into their evolutionary trends6
- Pocock, 19116
- Reassessing Devonotarbus, a phalangiotarbid arachnid from the Lower Devonian (Siegenian and Emsian) of the Rheinisches Schiefergebirge (SW Germany)5
- A study of the structure classification and relationships of the Palaeozoic Arachnida based on the collections of the British Museum5
- Some additions to the Carboniferous terrestrial arthropod fauna of Illinois3
- Paleozoic and Mesozoic Arachnida of Europe2
- Illustrations of the Carboniferous Arachnida of North America, of the orders Anthracomarti and Pedipalpi2
- Chelicerate arthropods, including the oldest phalangiotarbid arachnid, from the Early Devonian (Siegenian) of the Rhenish Massif, Germany1
- The phylogenetic position of the extinct arachnid order Phalangiotarbida Haase, 1890, with reference to the fauna from the Writhlington Geological Nature Reserve (Somerset, UK)1
- A redescription of some poorly known Rotliegend arachnids from the Lower Permian (Asselian) of the Ilfeld and Thuringian Forest Basins, Germany1
- Soft-bodied fossils from the roof shales of the Wigan Four Foot coal seem, Westhoughton, Lancashire, UK1
Each of the 55 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. 12 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 Phalangiotarbida
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Russell J. Garwood and Jason Dunlop
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Phalangiotarbida 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 itArachnida through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Haase 1890)