Acanthocephala

Acanthocephala is a group of parasitic worms known as acanthocephalans, thorny-headed worms, or spiny-headed worms, characterized by the presence of an eversible proboscis, armed with spines, which it uses to pierce and hold the gut wall of its host. Acanthocephalans have complex life cycles, involving at least two hosts, which may include invertebrates, fish, amphibians, birds, and mammals. About 1,420 species have been described.

Acanthocephala

Dr. Neil Campbell, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK · 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
LemnisceaPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 117 million years on record.

The record covers at least 201.4 Mya to 83.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 227.3 Mya to 66 Mya.

Late Triassic — about 1 of 3 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 3 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 3 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 1 of 3 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 3 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 1 of 3 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 3 occurrences231–225 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences225–219 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences219–214 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences214–208 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences208–203 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences203–197 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences169–163 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences163–158 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences158–152 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences85–80 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences80–74 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences74–68 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences68–63 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences201.4 Mya83.6 Mya231 Mya63 Mya

3 occurrences of Acanthocephala on record. 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

3 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

3 formations

Adamantina — 21.94°S, 51.37°WDaohugou — 41.32°N, 119.24°EDenwa — 21.81°N, 77.12°E

Loading coastlines…

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

Found in the same rock

313 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Acanthocephala, 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

3 references

Each of the 3 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Acanthocephala

Credit
Dr. Neil Campbell, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Acanthocephala was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itLemniscea through timeThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.