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

Yale Peabody Museum · CC0 · via GBIF. 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 18 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 504.5 Mya and 486.85 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
50 occurrences of Coosina 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
50 occurrences- Cambrian100%
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
9 formations
- Deadwood Formation20
- Riley Formation18
- Orr Formation4
- DuNoir Limestone Formation2
- Petit Jardin Formation · Port Au Port Group2
- Pilgrim Formation1
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The named rock units Coosina has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Coosina and its relatives
CambrianWhere Coosina and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.
Found in the same rock
82 taxa- Tricrepicephalus coria24 sites
- Coosia alethes16 sites
- Crepicephalus14 sites
- Pseudagnostina douvillei13 sites
- Blountia11 sites
- Kingstonia11 sites
- Kingstonia walcotti11 sites
- Coosia10 sites
- Llanoaspis9 sites
- Uncaspis8 sites
- Crepicephalus buttsi7 sites
- Arcuolimbus convexus6 sites
- Blountiella6 sites
- Coosella6 sites
- Dresbachia6 sites
- Kingstonia pontotocensis6 sites
- Opisthotreta depressa6 sites
- Tricrepicephalus6 sites
- Agnostogonus incognitus5 sites
- Crepicephalus auratus5 sites
- Kormagnostus seclusus5 sites
- Porifera5 sites
- Terranovella dorsalis5 sites
- Tricrepicephalus tripunctatus5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 50 sites for Coosina, 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
11 references- Trilobites, Biostratigraphy, and Lithostratigraphy of the Crepicephalus and Aphelaspis zones, Lower Deadwood formation (Marjuman and Steptoean Stages, Upper Cambrian), Black Hills, South Dakota19
- The Faunas of the Riley Formation in Central Texas18
- Upper Cambrian Orr Formation: Its Subdivisions and Correlatives in Western Utah4
- Upper Cambrian faunas from the northwest Wind River Mountains, Wyoming. Part 12
- Cambrian Macrofossils from the Phillips Brook and North Brook Anticlines, Western Newfoundland1
- Upper Cambrian (Marjuman-Steptoean) trilobites from the Port Au Port Group, western Newfoundland1
- Stratigraphic and faunal studies of the Pilgrim Formation in south-central Montana1
- Crepicephalus Faunule from the Bonneterre Dolomite (Upper Cambrian) of Missouri1
- Stratigraphy of the Deadwood Formation Black Hills, South Dakota and Wyoming. MS Thesis South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. Rapid City. Crepicephalus horizon in the Deadwood Formation of South Dakota1
- Dresbachian and Franconian trilobites of the Conococheague and Frederick Limestones of the central Appalachians1
- Cambrian geology and paleontology III. No. 5. Cambrian trilobites1
Each of the 50 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 content1

Picture of Coosina
- Source
- GBIF
- Credit
- Yale Peabody Museum
- 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Coosina”
- 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. Rasetti 1956