Sceptaspis

Sceptaspis

via iDigBio · CC0 · via iDigBio. 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
EomonorachinaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Phacopina
Life habit
low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Trilobita
Motility
fast-movingPBDB, for Trilobita
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Pterygometopidae
Environment
marinePBDB, for Trilobita

Time the record covers

At least 2.8 million years on record.

The record covers at least 453.8 Mya to 451 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 458.2 Mya to 445.2 Mya.

Ordovician — about 26 of 26 occurrencesOrdovician458–458 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences458–457 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences457–457 Mya — about 1 occurrence457–456 Mya — about 1 occurrence456–456 Mya — about 1 occurrence456–455 Mya — about 1 occurrence455–455 Mya — about 1 occurrence455–455 Mya — about 1 occurrence455–454 Mya — about 1 occurrence454–454 Mya — about 1 occurrence454–453 Mya — about 1 occurrence453–453 Mya — about 1 occurrence453–452 Mya — about 1 occurrence452–452 Mya — about 1 occurrence452–451 Mya — about 1 occurrence451–451 Mya — about 2 occurrences451–450 Mya — about 3 occurrences450–450 Mya — about 1 occurrence450–449 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences449–449 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences449–448 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences448–448 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences448–448 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences448–447 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences447–447 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences447–446 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences446–446 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences446–445 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences453.8 Mya451 Mya458.7 Mya444.7 Mya

26 occurrences of Sceptaspis 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

26 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

19 formations

Dunleith — 42.00°N, 90.50°WGrand Detour — 42.00°N, 90.00°WGrand Detour — 42.00°N, 90.50°WMifflin — 42.00°N, 90.00°WMifflin — 42.00°N, 90.50°WIon — 42.00°N, 90.50°WWhittaker — 62.00°N, 127.00°WKhankhara — 51.07°N, 84.94°EKhankhara — 51.26°N, 82.81°EGuttenberg — 42.00°N, 90.00°WPlatteville — 44.98°N, 93.27°WDecorah Shale — 44.98°N, 93.27°WProsser Limestone — 44.98°N, 93.27°WWise Lake — 44.98°N, 93.27°WPecatonica — 42.00°N, 90.50°WNachusa — 42.00°N, 90.50°WVerulam — 44.43°N, 78.78°WDecorah — 39.12°N, 90.97°WShipshaw — 48.64°N, 71.20°WTekhten — 50.97°N, 85.05°EBugryshikha — 51.26°N, 82.81°EBobcaygeon — 44.58°N, 79.09°W

Loading coastlines…

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

Sceptaspis and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Sceptaspis and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

358 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 26 sites for Sceptaspis, 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

9 references

Each of the 26 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 Sceptaspis

Source
iDigBio
Credit
via iDigBio
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Sceptaspis 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.

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

Keep going

What may have been alongside itEomonorachinae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ludvigsen and Chatterton 1982