Canadaspis

Canadaspis is an extinct genus of bivalved Cambrian marine arthropod, known from North America and China. They are thought to have been benthic feeders that moved mainly by walking and possibly used their biramous appendages to stir mud in search of food. They have been placed within the Hymenocarina, which includes other bivalved Cambrian arthropods.

Canadaspis

Jean-Bernard Caron · CC0 · 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
CanadaspididaePBDB
Diet
detritivorePBDB
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB
Motility
fast-movingPBDB
Vision
well-developedPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 15 million years on record.

The record covers at least 516 Mya to 500.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 521 Mya to 497 Mya.

Cambrian — about 52 of 52 occurrencesCambrian522–521 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences521–520 Mya — about 2 occurrences520–519 Mya — about 2 occurrences519–518 Mya — about 2 occurrences518–517 Mya — about 2 occurrences517–517 Mya — about 2 occurrences517–516 Mya — about 1 occurrence516–515 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences515–514 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences514–513 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences513–512 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences512–512 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences512–511 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences511–510 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences510–509 Mya — about 4 occurrences509–508 Mya — about 5 occurrences508–507 Mya — about 5 occurrences507–507 Mya — about 5 occurrences507–506 Mya — about 6 occurrences506–505 Mya — about 3 occurrences505–504 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences504–503 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences503–502 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences502–502 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences502–501 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences501–500 Mya — about 1 occurrence500–499 Mya — about 1 occurrence499–498 Mya — about 1 occurrence498–497 Mya — about 1 occurrence497–497 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences516 Mya500.5 Mya521.5 Mya496.5 Mya

52 occurrences of Canadaspis 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

52 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

13 formations

Burgess Shale — 51.44°N, 116.47°WBurgess Shale — 51.03°N, 115.83°WBurgess Shale — 51.39°N, 116.43°WYu'anshan — 25.33°N, 103.50°EYu'anshan — 24.77°N, 102.58°EQiongzhusi — 24.65°N, 102.97°EQiongzhusi — 24.68°N, 102.98°EQiongzhusi — 24.72°N, 102.95°EYuanshan — 25.40°N, 103.38°EYuanshan — 24.80°N, 102.58°EStephen — 51.40°N, 116.48°WStephen — 51.17°N, 116.08°WWheeler Shale — 39.36°N, 111.59°WWheeler Shale — 39.20°N, 113.30°WPioche Shale — 37.92°N, 114.61°WLead Bell Shale — 42.00°N, 112.00°WWheeler — 39.40°N, 113.28°WDuchesnay — 50.63°N, 115.60°WPioche — 37.80°N, 114.57°WLongha — 23.26°N, 105.54°EBalang — 26.39°N, 107.69°E

Loading coastlines…

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

Canadaspis and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Canadaspis and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

433 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 48 sites for Canadaspis, 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

21 references

Each of the 52 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. 8 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 Canadaspis

Credit
Jean-Bernard Caron
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Canadaspis 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.

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 itCanadaspididae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Novozhilov in Orlov 1960