Priapulida

Priapulida, sometimes referred to as penis worms, is a phylum of unsegmented marine worms. The name of the phylum relates to the Greek god of fertility, because their general shape and their extensible spiny introvert (eversible) proboscis may resemble the shape of a human penis.

Priapulida

Shunkina Ksenia · CC BY 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
Also called
priapulid wormPBDB
Sits inside
ScalidophoraPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
shallow infaunalPBDB
Motility
facultatively mobilePBDB
Vision
blindPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 215 million years on record.

The record covers at least 525.5 Mya to 309.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 538.8 Mya to 307.4 Mya.

Cambrian — about 359 of 386 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 16 of 386 occurrencesOrdovicianSilurian — about 7 of 386 occurrencesSilurianDevonian — about 0 of 386 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 4 of 386 occurrencesCarboniferous543–535 Mya — about 2 occurrences535–527 Mya — about 5 occurrences527–519 Mya — about 56 occurrences519–511 Mya — about 150 occurrences511–503 Mya — about 128 occurrences503–495 Mya — about 18 occurrences495–487 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences487–479 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences479–471 Mya — about 2 occurrences471–463 Mya — about 2 occurrences463–455 Mya — about 4 occurrences455–447 Mya — about 7 occurrences447–439 Mya — about 2 occurrences439–431 Mya — about 1 occurrence431–423 Mya — about 4 occurrences423–415 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences311–303 Mya — about 4 occurrences525.5 Mya309.8 Mya543 Mya303 Mya

386 occurrences of Priapulida 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

386 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

64 formations

Burgess Shale — 51.44°N, 116.47°WBurgess Shale — 51.03°N, 115.83°WBurgess Shale — 51.39°N, 116.43°WYuanshan — 24.81°N, 102.58°EYuanshan — 24.67°N, 102.65°EYuanshan — 24.84°N, 102.41°EYuanshan — 25.40°N, 103.38°EYuanshan — 25.72°N, 103.99°EYuanshan — 24.00°N, 102.00°EYu'anshan — 25.33°N, 103.50°EYu'anshan — 25.55°N, 102.40°EYu'anshan — 24.77°N, 102.58°EQiongzhusi — 24.67°N, 102.92°EQiongzhusi — 32.00°N, 108.00°EQiongzhusi — 24.73°N, 102.57°EBalang — 26.39°N, 107.69°EBalang — 28.42°N, 109.42°EElla Island — 74.35°N, 22.77°WElla Island — 74.10°N, 22.98°WLower Comley — 52.56°N, 2.76°WLower Comley — 52.58°N, 2.67°WLower Comley — 52.54°N, 2.80°WWulongqing — 24.95°N, 102.80°EWulongqing — 25.68°N, 102.17°EWulongqing — 24.90°N, 102.82°EWulongqing — 24.46°N, 102.81°ESinsk — 61.08°N, 126.58°EMarjum — 39.00°N, 113.00°WMarjum — 39.27°N, 113.31°WHongjingshao — 24.83°N, 102.83°EHongjingshao — 25.10°N, 102.80°EKinzers — 40.04°N, 76.31°WKinzers — 40.09°N, 76.35°WLead Bell Shale — 42.00°N, 112.00°WCarbondale — 41.22°N, 88.21°WPika — 53.20°N, 119.15°WRamsay — 34.77°S, 137.72°ERamsay — 34.78°S, 137.75°EShuijingtuo — 30.50°N, 111.16°EGilwern Volcanic — 52.24°N, 3.38°WWeeks — 39.22°N, 113.40°WKope — 39.00°N, 84.00°WLower Wheeler Shale — 40.00°N, 113.00°WKuonamka — 70.74°N, 112.98°EKuonamka — 70.22°N, 113.70°EDuchesnay — 51.10°N, 115.95°WDuchesnay — 50.63°N, 115.60°WPioche Shale — 37.92°N, 114.61°WPioche Shale — 37.77°N, 114.56°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Priapulida has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 40 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Priapulida and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Priapulida and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

1,517 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 174 sites for Priapulida, 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

77 references

Each of the 386 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. 65 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 Priapulida

Credit
Shunkina Ksenia
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Priapulida was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access 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 itScalidophora through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Théel 1906)