Elliptocephala asaphoides

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
- ElliptocephalaPBDB
- Diet
- deposit feederPBDB, for Redlichiida
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Redlichiida
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Redlichiida
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Trilobita
Time the record covers
At most 5.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 515.3 Mya and 509.7 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
8 occurrences of Elliptocephala asaphoides 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
8 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
2 formations
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The named rock units Elliptocephala asaphoides has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Elliptocephala asaphoides and its relatives
CambrianWhere Elliptocephala asaphoides and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.
Found in the same rock
31 taxa- Hyolithes americanus7 sites
- Hyolithellus micans6 sites
- Insolitotheca communis6 sites
- Pelagiella primaeva6 sites
- Asperconella gloriae5 sites
- Bactrotheca emmonsi5 sites
- Botsfordia caelata5 sites
- Chancelloria5 sites
- Conotheca australiensis5 sites
- Davidonia taconica5 sites
- Archaeocyatha4 sites
- Davidonia rostrata4 sites
- Discinella micans4 sites
- Lapworthella schodakensis3 sites
- Lingulella3 sites
- Petasotheca minuta3 sites
- Calodiscus lobatus2 sites
- Hertzina2 sites
- Mellopegma georginense2 sites
- Plinthokonion psamminon2 sites
- Serrodiscus speciosus2 sites
- Acrotreta sagittalis1 site
- Ekwipagetia marginata1 site
- Fordaspis1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Elliptocephala asaphoides, 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
3 references- Oldest shelly fossils from the Taconic Allochthon and late Early Cambrian sea-levels in eastern Laurentia6
- Lower and Middle Cambrian Trilobite Faunas from the Taconic Sequence of New York1
- Cambrian Brachiopoda1
Each of the 8 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 Elliptocephala asaphoides
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Elliptocephala asaphoides 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itElliptocephala through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Emmons 1844)