Anomalocaris lineata

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
- AnomalocarisPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Anomalocaris
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB, for Anomalocaris
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Anomalocaris
Time the record covers
At most 5.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 515.3 Mya and 509.7 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
4 occurrences of Anomalocaris lineata 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
4 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
1 formation
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The named rock units Anomalocaris lineata has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Anomalocaris lineata and its relatives
CambrianWhere Anomalocaris lineata and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.
Found in the same rock
45 taxa- Olenellus roddyi4 sites
- Esmeraldina macer3 sites
- Hyolithes wanneri3 sites
- Lepidocystis wanneri3 sites
- Olenellus alius3 sites
- Olenellus wanneri3 sites
- Peronopsis roddyi3 sites
- Salterella acervulosa3 sites
- Wanneria walcottana3 sites
- Anomalocaris pennsylvanica2 sites
- Bonniella yorkensis2 sites
- Camptostroma roddyi2 sites
- Hazelia walcotti2 sites
- Kutorgina2 sites
- Margaretia ramosa2 sites
- Olenellus getzi2 sites
- Olenellus peculiaris2 sites
- Roddyia typa2 sites
- Sidneyia2 sites
- Tuzoia dunbari2 sites
- Tuzoia polleni2 sites
- Bonnia1 site
- Bonniella1 site
- Crustacea1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Anomalocaris lineata, 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
2 references- Lower Cambrian Olenellus zone of the Appalachians3
- Geology of the Hanover-York District Pennsylvania1
Each of the 4 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 Anomalocaris lineata
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Anomalocaris lineata 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itAnomalocaris through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Resser and Howell 1938