Aulacopleura

Aulacopleura is a genus of proetid trilobite that lived from the Middle Ordovician to the Middle Devonian. Some authors may classify this group as subgenus Otarion (Aulacopleura). The cephalon is semicircular or semielliptical, with border and preglabellar field. The glabella is short, with or without defined eye ridges connecting it with eyes of variable size. Spines at the rear outer corners of the cephalon are present, typically reaching back to the 2nd to 4th thorax segment. The 'palate' is not connected to the dorsal shield of the cephalon. The cephalon is pitted, or has small tubercles. The thorax has up to 22 segments. The pleural ends are usually rounded. The pygidium is small (micropygous), with an even margin. A. koninckii had a modern type of compound eye.

Aulacopleura

Dwergenpaartje · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
AulacopleuridaePBDB
Diet
deposit feederPBDB, for Proetida
Life habit
low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Trilobita
Motility
fast-movingPBDB, for Trilobita
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Aulacopleuridae
Environment
marinePBDB, for Trilobita

Time the record covers

At least 81 million years on record.

The record covers at least 469.4 Mya to 387.95 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 477.1 Mya to 382.31 Mya.

Ordovician — about 7 of 65 occurrencesOrdovicianSilurian — about 29 of 65 occurrencesSilurianDevonian — about 29 of 65 occurrencesDevonian479–476 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences476–472 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences472–469 Mya — about 2 occurrences469–466 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences459–456 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences456–453 Mya — about 3 occurrences453–449 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences446–443 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences443–440 Mya — about 6 occurrences440–436 Mya — about 5 occurrences436–433 Mya — about 3 occurrences433–430 Mya — about 8 occurrences430–426 Mya — about 5 occurrences426–423 Mya — about 2 occurrences423–420 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences413–410 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences410–407 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences407–403 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences403–400 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences400–397 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences397–394 Mya — about 1 occurrence394–390 Mya — about 13 occurrences390–387 Mya — about 10 occurrences387–384 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences384–380 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences469.4 Mya387.95 Mya479 Mya380 Mya

65 occurrences of Aulacopleura on record, most of them in the Silurian. 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

65 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

22 formations

Motol — 50.00°N, 17.78°EMotol — 50.05°N, 14.37°EMotol — 50.03°N, 14.32°EMotol — 50.00°N, 14.22°EMotol — 49.97°N, 14.13°EWhittaker — 62.38°N, 127.00°WTangxiang — 22.00°N, 108.00°ETangxiang — 22.52°N, 107.98°EBalclatchie — 55.22°N, 4.85°WChotec — 50.08°N, 14.43°EChotec — 49.50°N, 14.33°EZelkovice — 50.01°N, 14.09°EDawan — 30.90°N, 111.39°EStinava-Chabicov — 50.00°N, 17.00°EChotec Limestone — 49.92°N, 14.07°ESrbsko — 49.50°N, 14.33°EChefar el Ahmar — 30.07°N, 2.23°WKopanina — 49.95°N, 12.93°ECape Schuchert — 81.00°N, 65.00°WRoad River — 65.28°N, 135.70°WEids — 76.00°N, 99.00°WRahal Shale — 34.03°N, 6.85°WAmerboh — 31.38°N, 4.07°WAkrech — 33.23°N, 5.62°WUpper Jenhochiao — 25.00°N, 99.00°EChaltash — 40.41°N, 66.45°EBicken-Ense — 50.60°N, 8.25°EWeiba — 27.62°N, 104.82°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Aulacopleura has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 12 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Aulacopleura and its relatives

Silurian

Where Aulacopleura and its relatives were recorded in the Silurian.

Found in the same rock

611 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 62 sites for Aulacopleura, 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

26 references

Each of the 65 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. 14 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 Aulacopleura

Credit
Dwergenpaartje
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Aulacopleura 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 itAulacopleuridae through timeFormations of the SilurianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Hawle and Corda 1847)