Calymene blumenbachii

Calymene blumenbachii, sometimes erroneously spelled blumenbachi, is a species of trilobite discovered in the limestone quarries of the Wren's Nest in Dudley, England. Nicknamed the Dudley Bug or Dudley Locust by 18th-century quarrymen it became a symbol of the town and featured on the Dudley County Borough Council coat-of-arms. Calymene blumenbachii is commonly found in Silurian rocks and is thought to have lived in the shallow waters of the Silurian, in low-energy reefs. This particular species of Calymene is unique to the Wenlock series in England, and comes from the Wenlock Limestone Formation in Much Wenlock and the Wren's Nest in Dudley. These sites seem to yield trilobites more readily than any other areas on the Wenlock Edge, and the rock here is dark grey as opposed to yellowish or whitish as it appears on other parts of the Edge, just a few miles away, in Church Stretton and elsewhere. This suggests local changes in the environment in which the rock was deposited.

Calymene blumenbachii

James St. John · 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
Sits inside
CalymenePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Calymenidae
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Calymenidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Calymenidae
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Calymenidae
Environment
marinePBDB, for Trilobita

Time the record covers

At least 2.3 million years on record.

The record covers at least 432.9 Mya to 430.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 443.1 Mya to 426.7 Mya.

Ordovician — about 0 of 16 occurrencesSilurian — about 16 of 16 occurrencesSilurian444–443 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences443–442 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences442–442 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences442–441 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences441–441 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences441–440 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences440–440 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences440–439 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences439–438 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences438–438 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences438–437 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences437–437 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences437–436 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences436–435 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences435–435 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences435–434 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences434–434 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences434–433 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences433–433 Mya — about 1 occurrence433–432 Mya — about 2 occurrences432–431 Mya — about 2 occurrences431–431 Mya — about 1 occurrence431–430 Mya — about 1 occurrence430–430 Mya — about 1 occurrence430–429 Mya — about 1 occurrence429–429 Mya — about 1 occurrence429–428 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences428–427 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences427–427 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences427–426 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences432.9 Mya430.6 Mya443.6 Mya426.2 Mya

16 occurrences of Calymene blumenbachii 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

16 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

8 formations

Jaani — 58.62°N, 22.90°EJaani — 58.57°N, 22.29°EJaani — 58.61°N, 22.95°EMuch Wenlock — 52.60°N, 2.55°WMuch Wenlock — 52.50°N, 2.08°WRestevo Subsuite — 48.58°N, 26.92°EDemshin Subsuite — 48.65°N, 26.80°ETernava Suite — 51.82°N, 34.22°EJocionys — 54.47°N, 24.62°EPaprieniai — 54.47°N, 24.62°EMuch Wenlock Limestone — 52.52°N, 2.10°W

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The named rock units Calymene blumenbachii has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Calymene blumenbachii and its relatives

Silurian

Where Calymene blumenbachii and its relatives were recorded in the Silurian.

Found in the same rock

168 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 14 sites for Calymene blumenbachii, 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

12 references

Each of the 16 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 content2

Picture of Calymene blumenbachii

Credit
James St. John
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

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 itCalymene through timeFormations of the SilurianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Brongniart 1822