Canadia spinosa

Canadia is a genus of extinct annelid worm present in Burgess Shale type Konservat-Lagerstätte. It is found in strata dating back to the Delamaran stage of the Middle Cambrian around 505 million years ago, during the time of the Cambrian explosion. It was about 3 centimeters in length. Charles Doolittle Walcott named Canadia in 1911 after Canada, the country from which its remains have been found. 28 specimens of Canadia are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise 0.05% of the community.

Canadia spinosa

Bruce Martin · 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
CanadiaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Canadia
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Canadia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Canadia
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Polychaeta

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 4 of 4 occurrencesCambrian510–510 Mya — about 0.0 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 0.0 occurrences510.2 Mya504.8 Mya

4 occurrences of Canadia spinosa 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

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

Burgess Shale — 51.44°N, 116.47°W

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

Canadia spinosa and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Canadia spinosa and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

77 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Canadia spinosa, 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

1 reference

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 Canadia spinosa

Credit
Bruce Martin
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Canadia spinosa 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 itCanadia through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

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