Cancer

Cancer is a genus of marine crabs in the family Cancridae. It includes eight extant species and three extinct species, including familiar crabs of the littoral zone, such as the European edible crab, the Jonah crab and the red rock crab. It is thought to have evolved from related genera in the Pacific Ocean in the Miocene.

Cancer

Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez ( Lmbuga Commons )( Lmbuga Galipedia ) Publicada por/ Publish by : Luis Miguel Bugallo Sá… · 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
Also called
crabPBDB
Sits inside
CancrinaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Decapoda
Life habit
semi-infaunalPBDB, for Cancridae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Malacostraca
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Malacostraca

Time the record covers

At least 93 million years on record.

The record covers at least 93.9 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 124 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 2 of 124 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 124 occurrencesEocene — about 4 of 124 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 2 of 124 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 26 of 124 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 26 of 124 occurrencesPleistocene — about 61 of 124 occurrences103–99 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences99–96 Mya — about 1 occurrence96–92 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences58–55 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences55–51 Mya — about 1 occurrence51–48 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences48–44 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences44–41 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences41–38 Mya — about 1 occurrence38–34 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences34–31 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences27–24 Mya — about 2 occurrences24–21 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 5 occurrences17–14 Mya — about 5 occurrences14–10 Mya — about 7 occurrences10–6.8 Mya — about 6 occurrences6.8–3.4 Mya — about 14 occurrences3.4–0 Mya — about 78 occurrences93.9 Mya11.7 ka103 Mya0 Mya

124 occurrences of Cancer on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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

124 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

48 formations

San Pedro — 33.93°N, 117.95°WSan Pedro — 33.80°N, 118.17°WSan Pedro — 33.75°N, 118.28°WSan Pedro — 33.75°N, 118.29°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.80°N, 118.16°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.99°N, 118.45°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.60°N, 117.88°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.75°N, 118.29°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.75°N, 118.29°WEtchegoin — 36.08°N, 120.36°WEtchegoin — 36.18°N, 120.29°WEtchegoin — 36.10°N, 120.52°WEtchegoin — 36.01°N, 120.04°WEtchegoin — 36.42°N, 120.96°WTimms Point Silt — 33.73°N, 118.28°WTalbot — 38.07°N, 76.36°WTalbot — 38.05°N, 76.52°WFernando — 34.05°N, 118.25°WSanta Barbara — 34.41°N, 119.72°WSanta Barbara — 34.44°N, 119.78°WSanta Barbara — 34.45°N, 119.78°WSan Pedro Sand — 33.74°N, 118.28°WSan Diego — 32.80°N, 117.26°WSan Diego — 32.54°N, 117.11°WSan Diego — 32.81°N, 117.23°WPico — 34.36°N, 118.56°WPico — 34.38°N, 119.07°WLillo — 51.26°N, 4.21°ELillo — 51.29°N, 4.25°ELomita Marl — 33.75°N, 118.30°WMillerton — 38.22°N, 122.95°WMillerton — 38.22°N, 122.95°WElk River — 42.81°N, 124.53°WSan Joaquin — 36.00°N, 120.00°WPurisima — 36.96°N, 121.96°WOlcese — 35.45°N, 118.87°WAstoria — 43.40°N, 124.28°WSt. Marys — 38.35°N, 76.39°WPeruc-Koryčany — 49.11°N, 17.16°EPeruc-Koryčany — 49.94°N, 15.47°EPinczow — 50.47°N, 20.80°EEstancia 25 de Mayo — 50.51°S, 72.25°WBlakeley — 47.58°N, 122.48°WAcredale — 36.79°N, 76.17°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Cancer has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 24 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 26 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Cancer and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Cancer and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

1,646 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 86 sites for Cancer, 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

35 references

Each of the 124 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. 23 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 content2

Picture of Cancer

Credit
Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez ( Lmbuga Commons )( Lmbuga Galipedia ) Publicada por/ Publish by : Luis Miguel Bugallo Sá…
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itCancrinae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758