Amblypygi

Amblypygi is an order of arachnids also known as whip-spiders or tailless whip-scorpions. The name "amblypygid" means "blunt tail", a reference to a lack of the flagellum that is otherwise seen in whip-scorpions. Amblypygids possess no silk glands or venom. They rarely bite if threatened but can grab fingers with their pedipalps, resulting in thorn-like puncture-injuries.

Amblypygi

Graham Wise · CC BY 2.0 · 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
Also called
whip spiderPBDB
Sits inside
PedipalpiPBDB
Life habit
solitaryPBDB, for Arachnida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arachnida
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Arachnida

Time the record covers

At least 296 million years on record.

The record covers at least 316.9 Mya to 20.45 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 318.7 Mya to 13.82 Mya.

Carboniferous — about 13 of 24 occurrencesPermian — about 0 of 24 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 24 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 24 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 24 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 24 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 24 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 24 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 24 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 4 of 24 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 24 occurrencesEocene — about 1 of 24 occurrencesOligocene — about 1 of 24 occurrencesMiocene — about 4 of 24 occurrences325–314 Mya — about 8 occurrences314–304 Mya — about 5 occurrences124–113 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences113–103 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences103–92 Mya — about 4 occurrences61–50 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences50–39 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences29–18 Mya — about 3 occurrences18–7.7 Mya — about 2 occurrences316.9 Mya20.45 Mya325 Mya8 Mya

24 occurrences of Amblypygi on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

24 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

4 formations

Carbondale — 41.34°N, 88.39°WNiveau du gypse d'Aix — 43.52°N, 5.45°EJoggins — 45.70°N, 64.43°WCrato — 7.13°S, 39.70°W

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The named rock units Amblypygi has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 18 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Amblypygi and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Amblypygi and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

1,808 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 22 sites for Amblypygi, 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

14 references

Each of the 24 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. 2 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 content1

Picture of Amblypygi

Credit
Graham Wise
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Amblypygi 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 itPedipalpi through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Thorell 1883