Anomalocarididae
Anomalocarididae is an extinct family of Cambrian radiodonts, a group of stem-group arthropods.

Junnn11 · 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
- RadiodontaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB
Time the record covers
At least 11 million years on record.
The record covers at least 516 Mya to 504.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 538.8 Mya to 497 Mya.
54 occurrences of Anomalocarididae on record, most of them in the Cambrian. 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
54 occurrences- Cambrian100%
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
- Yuanshan Formation11
- Kinzers Formation8
- Burgess Shale Formation6
- Pioche Shale Formation4
- Pioche Formation3
- Wheeler Shale Formation3
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The named rock units Anomalocarididae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Anomalocarididae and its relatives
CambrianWhere Anomalocarididae and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.
Found in the same rock
574 taxa- Anomalocaris16 sites
- Arthropoda10 sites
- Leanchoilia illecebrosa9 sites
- Tuzoia8 sites
- Kunmingella douvillei7 sites
- Mafangscolex sinensis7 sites
- Misszhouia longicaudata7 sites
- Selkirkia7 sites
- Canadaspis6 sites
- Heliomedusa orienta6 sites
- Hyolithes6 sites
- Isoxys6 sites
- Isoxys auritus6 sites
- Naraoia6 sites
- Naraoia spinosa6 sites
- Problematica6 sites
- Vetulicola6 sites
- Cricocosmia jinningensis5 sites
- Hazelia5 sites
- Isoxys paradoxus5 sites
- Kunmingella5 sites
- Lingulella5 sites
- Olenellus roddyi5 sites
- Ottoia5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 44 sites for Anomalocarididae, 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
28 references- Lower Cambrian Olenellus zone of the Appalachians6
- Taphonomy and Palaeoecology of the Early Cambrian Chengjiang Biota from Eastern Yunnan, China5
- New anomalocaridid appendages from the Burgess Shale, Canada4
- Community palaeoecology of the early Cambrian Maotianshan Shale biota: Ecological dominance of priapulid worms4
- The diverse radiodont fauna from the Marjum Formation of Utah, USA (Cambrian: Drumian)3
- Middle Cambrian arthropods from Utah3
- Exceptionally preserved nontrilobite arthropods and Anomalocaris from the Middle Cambrian of Utah3
- The endemic radiodionts of the Cambrian Stage 4 Guanshan Biota of South China2
- Preservation of early and Middle Cambrian soft-bodied arthropods from the Pioche Shale, Nevada, USA2
- The Burgess Shale and associated Cambrian formations west of the Fossil Gully Fault Zone on Mount Stephen, British Columbia2
- Oryctocephalids (Corynexochida: Trilobita) of the Lower-Middle Cambrian boundary interval from California and Nevada2
- Paleontology of Northwestern Vermont. V. The Lower Cambrian Fauna2
Each of the 54 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. 16 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 Anomalocarididae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Junnn11
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Anomalocarididae 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 itRadiodonta through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Raymond 1935