Coosia

Coosia is an extinct genus from a well-known class of fossil marine arthropods, the trilobites. It lived from 501 to 490 million years ago during the Dresbachian faunal stage of the late Cambrian Period.

Coosia

via iDigBio · CC0 · via iDigBio. 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
CrepicephalidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Trilobita
Life habit
low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Trilobita
Motility
fast-movingPBDB, for Trilobita
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Crepicephalidae
Environment
marinePBDB, for Trilobita

Time the record covers

At most 20 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 506.5 Mya and 486.85 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Cambrian — about 64 of 64 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 0 of 64 occurrences507–506 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences506–506 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences506–505 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences505–504 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences504–504 Mya — about 1 occurrence504–503 Mya — about 1 occurrence503–502 Mya — about 1 occurrence502–501 Mya — about 1 occurrence501–501 Mya — about 1 occurrence501–500 Mya — about 2 occurrences500–499 Mya — about 3 occurrences499–499 Mya — about 3 occurrences499–498 Mya — about 4 occurrences498–497 Mya — about 4 occurrences497–497 Mya — about 3 occurrences497–496 Mya — about 3 occurrences496–495 Mya — about 3 occurrences495–495 Mya — about 3 occurrences495–494 Mya — about 3 occurrences494–493 Mya — about 3 occurrences493–493 Mya — about 3 occurrences493–492 Mya — about 3 occurrences492–491 Mya — about 3 occurrences491–490 Mya — about 3 occurrences490–490 Mya — about 3 occurrences490–489 Mya — about 3 occurrences489–488 Mya — about 3 occurrences488–488 Mya — about 3 occurrences488–487 Mya — about 3 occurrences487–486 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences507 Mya486.4 Mya

64 occurrences of Coosia 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

64 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

14 formations

Deadwood — 44.42°N, 103.71°WDeadwood — 44.25°N, 103.78°WDeadwood — 44.28°N, 103.73°WDeadwood — 44.25°N, 103.57°WDeadwood — 44.07°N, 103.22°WDeadwood — 44.00°N, 103.00°WDeadwood — 44.45°N, 104.42°WRiley — 30.64°N, 99.26°WRiley — 30.92°N, 98.61°WRiley — 30.81°N, 98.28°WRiley — 30.91°N, 99.00°WRiley — 30.76°N, 99.41°WRiley — 30.54°N, 99.09°WRiley — 30.49°N, 98.52°WRiley — 30.81°N, 98.37°WWarrior — 40.82°N, 77.93°WDresbach — 44.52°N, 89.57°WRaiff Limestone — 39.40°N, 114.78°WWoods Hollow Boulders — 30.03°N, 103.31°WXugou — 32.80°N, 111.45°ESpurs — 71.34°S, 163.21°EPilgrim — 44.66°N, 111.10°WNolichucky — 36.75°N, 82.25°WRabbitkettle — 62.70°N, 128.38°WPetit Jardin — 48.50°N, 59.13°WMilpillas — 28.92°N, 109.29°WLa Cruz Limestone — 32.87°S, 69.69°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Coosia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Coosia and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Coosia and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

150 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 61 sites for Coosia, 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

18 references

Each of the 64 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. 6 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 Coosia

Source
iDigBio
Credit
via iDigBio
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itCrepicephalidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

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