Ptychaspis

Ptychaspis

Yale Peabody Museum · CC0 · via GBIF. 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
PtychaspididaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Trilobita
Life habit
low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Asaphida
Motility
fast-movingPBDB, for Asaphida
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Ptychaspididae
Environment
marinePBDB, for Trilobita

Time the record covers

At most 11 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 497 Mya and 486.85 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Cambrian — about 74 of 74 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 0 of 74 occurrences497–497 Mya — about 1 occurrence497–496 Mya — about 2 occurrences496–496 Mya — about 2 occurrences496–496 Mya — about 2 occurrences496–495 Mya — about 2 occurrences495–495 Mya — about 2 occurrences495–495 Mya — about 2 occurrences495–494 Mya — about 2 occurrences494–494 Mya — about 2 occurrences494–493 Mya — about 2 occurrences493–493 Mya — about 3 occurrences493–493 Mya — about 3 occurrences493–492 Mya — about 3 occurrences492–492 Mya — about 3 occurrences492–492 Mya — about 3 occurrences492–491 Mya — about 3 occurrences491–491 Mya — about 3 occurrences491–490 Mya — about 3 occurrences490–490 Mya — about 3 occurrences490–490 Mya — about 4 occurrences490–489 Mya — about 4 occurrences489–489 Mya — about 4 occurrences489–489 Mya — about 2 occurrences489–488 Mya — about 2 occurrences488–488 Mya — about 2 occurrences488–487 Mya — about 2 occurrences487–487 Mya — about 2 occurrences487–487 Mya — about 2 occurrences497.5 Mya486.4 Mya

74 occurrences of Ptychaspis 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

74 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

10 formations

Franconia — 44.52°N, 89.57°WFranconia — 44.45°N, 92.27°WFranconia — 44.42°N, 91.21°WBison Creek — 51.50°N, 116.20°WBison Creek — 52.23°N, 117.23°WBison Creek — 52.27°N, 117.28°WDeadwood — 44.28°N, 103.78°WDeadwood — 44.30°N, 103.65°WDeadwood — 44.08°N, 103.33°WDeadwood — 44.25°N, 103.45°WDeadwood — 44.30°N, 103.62°WDeadwood — 44.38°N, 103.67°WDeadwood — 44.52°N, 104.44°WSnowy Range — 47.15°N, 110.22°WSnowy Range — 45.87°N, 111.00°WSnowy Range — 45.92°N, 111.25°WFengshan — 39.75°N, 118.32°EHwajeol — 37.08°N, 129.02°ESt. Charles — 41.63°N, 111.67°WHoyt Limestone — 43.08°N, 73.86°WKeeseville — 43.08°N, 73.86°WFort Sill Limestone — 34.39°N, 97.12°W

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The named rock units Ptychaspis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Ptychaspis and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Ptychaspis and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

84 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 51 sites for Ptychaspis, 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

11 references

Each of the 74 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 Ptychaspis

Source
GBIF
Credit
Yale Peabody Museum
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itPtychaspididae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Hall 1863)