Aysheaia

No picture of Aysheaia is on file. Wikipedia and Wikidata have a picture filed under this name, but nothing tied it to Aysheaia itself, so it was not used. iDigBio and GBIF were not searched: the Paleobiology Database does not place Aysheaia firmly enough to tell it from something else bearing the same name, and a search on the name alone returns whichever of them was photographed. Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
AysheaiidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
low-level epifaunalPBDB
Motility
facultatively mobilePBDB

Time the record covers

At most 4.4 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 509.7 Mya and 505.3 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Cambrian — about 6 of 6 occurrencesCambrian510–510 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences510–509 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences509–509 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences509–509 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences509–509 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences509–509 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences509–509 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences509–508 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences508–508 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences508–508 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences508–508 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences508–508 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences508–508 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences508–507 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences507–507 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences507–507 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences507–507 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences507–507 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences507–506 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences506–506 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences506–506 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences506–506 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences506–506 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences506–506 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences506–505 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences505–505 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences510.2 Mya504.8 Mya

6 occurrences of Aysheaia 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

6 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

2 formations

Burgess Shale — 51.44°N, 116.47°WLower Wheeler Shale — 39.00°N, 113.00°W

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

Aysheaia and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Aysheaia and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

124 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Aysheaia, 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

Each of the 6 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. 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 content0

No picture of Aysheaia is on file.

Wikipedia and Wikidata have a picture filed under this name, but nothing tied it to Aysheaia itself, so it was not used.

iDigBio and GBIF were not searched: the Paleobiology Database does not place Aysheaia firmly enough to tell it from something else bearing the same name, and a search on the name alone returns whichever of them was photographed.

Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.

No 3D scan of Aysheaia 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.

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itAysheaiidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Walcott 1911