Soomaspis

Soomaspis is a genus of small to average size marine arthropods in the family Liwiidae, that lived during the late Ordovician. Fossil remains of Soomaspis were collected from the Soom Shale Lagerstätte in Western Cape, South Africa and also found during excavations of a metro line in Prague, Czech Republic. Soomaspis looks like a large, soft agnostid trilobite. It has a headshield wider than the tailshield (pygidium), and in between them three thoracic body segments (somites). The known species in this genus currently include Soomaspis splendida and Soomaspis labutai.

Soomaspis

Wawrow · CC BY-SA 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
LiwiinaePBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
Vision
blindPBDB, for Nektaspidida

Time the record covers

At most 2.1 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 445.2 Mya and 443.1 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Ordovician — about 1 of 1 occurrenceOrdovicianSilurian — about 0 of 1 occurrence445–445 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences445–445 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences445–445 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences445–445 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences445–445 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences445–445 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences445–445 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences445–444 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences444–444 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences444–444 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences444–444 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences444–444 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences444–444 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences444–444 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences444–444 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences444–444 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences444–444 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences444–443 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences443–443 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences443–443 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences443–443 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences443–443 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences445.7 Mya442.6 Mya

1 occurrence of Soomaspis 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

1 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

1 formation

Cedarburg — 32.30°S, 18.97°E

Loading coastlines…

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

Soomaspis and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Soomaspis and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

21 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Soomaspis, 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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Soomaspis

Credit
Wawrow
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Soomaspis 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 itLiwiinae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Fortey and Theron 1995