Sacabambaspis

Sacabambaspis is an extinct genus of armored jawless fish which lived in the Ordovician period. Sacabambaspis inhabited shallow waters on the continental margins of the southern supercontinent Gondwana. The most complete specimens have been found in Bolivia, while armor fragments are also known from Argentina, Australia, and Oman. Sacabambaspis vaguely resembles a slender tadpole, with an oversized armor-plated head, flat body, and no discernible fins outside of its narrow tail. The eyes are closely spaced and positioned at the very front of the head, akin to car headlamps. It was about 35 cm long in total, including its distinctively thin scaly tail.

Sacabambaspis

Baranov, Gennadi · CC BY 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
Sits inside
ArandaspididaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Chordata

Time the record covers

At most 22 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 471.3 Mya and 449.5 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Ordovician — about 9 of 9 occurrencesOrdovician472–471 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences471–470 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences470–470 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences470–469 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences469–468 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences468–467 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences467–466 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences466–466 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences466–465 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences465–464 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences464–463 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences463–463 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences463–462 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences462–461 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences461–460 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences460–460 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences460–459 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences459–458 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences458–457 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences457–457 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences457–456 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences456–455 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences455–454 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences454–454 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences454–453 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences453–452 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences452–451 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences451–451 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences451–450 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences450–449 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences471.8 Mya449 Mya

9 occurrences of Sacabambaspis 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

9 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

5 formations

Anzaldo — 17.80°S, 65.75°WAnzaldo — 17.50°S, 66.80°WAmdeh — 23.25°N, 58.50°EAmdeh — 23.17°N, 58.25°ELa Cantera — 31.00°S, 69.00°WCarmichael Sandstone — 24.20°S, 131.55°EStokes Siltstone — 23.83°S, 131.77°E

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

Sacabambaspis and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Sacabambaspis and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

16 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Sacabambaspis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

6 references

Each of the 9 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 content2

Picture of Sacabambaspis

Credit
Baranov, Gennadi
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itArandaspididae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.