Rusophycus

Rusophycus is an ichnogenus of trace fossil allied to Cruziana. Rusophycus is the resting trace, recording the outline of the tracemaker; Cruziana is made when the organism moved. The sculpture of Rusophycus may reveal the approximate number of legs that the tracemaker had, although striations (scratchmarks) from a single leg may overlap or be repeated.

A picture published with the record for Rusophycus. What it shows has not been checked.

Wilson44691 · Public Domain · 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
IchnofossilsPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 431 million years on record.

The record covers at least 525.5 Mya to 93.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 538.8 Mya to 89.8 Mya.

Cambrian — about 12 of 49 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 15 of 49 occurrencesOrdovicianSilurian — about 12 of 49 occurrencesDevonian — about 4 of 49 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 4 of 49 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 0 of 49 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 49 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 1 of 49 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 49 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 49 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 49 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 49 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 49 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 1 of 49 occurrences548–532 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences532–517 Mya — about 8 occurrences517–501 Mya — about 2 occurrences501–486 Mya — about 3 occurrences486–470 Mya — about 12 occurrences470–454 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences454–439 Mya — about 2 occurrences439–423 Mya — about 11 occurrences423–408 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences408–392 Mya — about 2 occurrences392–377 Mya — about 2 occurrences361–345 Mya — about 4 occurrences252–236 Mya — about 1 occurrence96–81 Mya — about 1 occurrence525.5 Mya93.9 Mya548 Mya81 Mya

49 occurrences of Rusophycus on record, most of them in the Ordovician. 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

49 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

23 formations

Beach — 47.63°N, 52.92°WHerkimer — 43.12°N, 75.60°WHerkimer — 43.04°N, 75.36°WHerkimer — 43.03°N, 75.28°WSnowy Plains — 37.01°S, 146.22°EMickwitzia Sandstone — 58.60°N, 13.35°EMickwitzia Sandstone — 58.62°N, 13.43°EPimenteira — 5.50°S, 41.33°WPimenteira — 7.08°S, 41.65°WPedroche — 37.95°N, 4.77°WGrebes Nest Point — 47.64°N, 52.98°WArnheim — 39.00°N, 84.00°WOcieseki Sandstone — 51.00°N, 20.00°EFile Haidar — 58.62°N, 13.77°EAcacus Sandstone — 24.97°N, 10.18°EManchap — 31.60°N, 78.75°EMurray Creek — 42.12°S, 171.85°EKurchavinskaya — 79.18°N, 97.30°ESodus — 43.23°N, 76.98°WPuerto Blanco — 30.12°N, 111.98°WAbu Agag — 23.50°N, 33.06°ERome — 36.13°N, 84.04°WFillmore — 39.22°N, 113.40°WChulaktau — 43.47°N, 69.87°EOuled Chebbi — 33.41°N, 10.42°EHarkless — 37.29°N, 118.14°WKandi — 11.10°N, 3.00°E

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The named rock units Rusophycus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Rusophycus and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Rusophycus and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

343 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 30 sites for Rusophycus, 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

Each of the 49 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 content3

Picture of Rusophycus

Credit
Wilson44691
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Photogrammetry

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
rusophycus sp. · MST:PALEO:MST-SP-13002

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC0 Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

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 itIchnofossils through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hall 1852