Elrathia

Elrathia is a genus of trilobite belonging to Ptychoparioidea known from the mid-Cambrian of Laurentia. E. kingii is one of the most common trilobite fossils in the USA locally found in extremely high concentrations within the Wheeler Formation in the U.S. state of Utah. E. kingii has been considered the most recognizable trilobite. Commercial quarries extract E. kingii in prolific numbers, with just one commercial collector estimating 1.5 million specimens extracted in a 20-year career. 1950 specimens of Elrathia are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise 3.7% of the community."...trilobite occupied the exaerobic zone, at the boundary of anoxic and dysoxic bottom waters. E. kingii consistently occur in settings below the oxygen levels required by other contemporaneous epifaunal and infaunal benthic biota and may have derived energy from a food web that existed independently of phototrophic primary productivity. Although other fossil organisms are known to have preferred such environments, E. kingii is the earliest-known inhabitant of them, extending the documented range of the exaerobic ecological strategy into the Cambrian Period."

Elrathia

Wilson44691 · Public Domain · 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
AlokistocaridaePBDB
Diet
detritivorePBDB
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB
Motility
fast-movingPBDB
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Alokistocaridae
Environment
marinePBDB, for Trilobita

Time the record covers

At least 8.3 million years on record.

The record covers at least 505.3 Mya to 497 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 509.7 Mya to 486.85 Mya.

Cambrian — about 72 of 72 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 0 of 72 occurrences510–509 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences509–509 Mya — about 2 occurrences509–508 Mya — about 3 occurrences508–507 Mya — about 4 occurrences507–506 Mya — about 5 occurrences506–505 Mya — about 6 occurrences505–505 Mya — about 4 occurrences505–504 Mya — about 5 occurrences504–503 Mya — about 5 occurrences503–502 Mya — about 5 occurrences502–501 Mya — about 5 occurrences501–501 Mya — about 5 occurrences501–500 Mya — about 5 occurrences500–499 Mya — about 5 occurrences499–498 Mya — about 4 occurrences498–497 Mya — about 4 occurrences497–497 Mya — about 3 occurrences497–496 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences496–495 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences495–494 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences494–494 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences494–493 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences493–492 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences492–491 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences491–490 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences490–490 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences490–489 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences489–488 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences488–487 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences487–486 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences505.3 Mya497 Mya510.2 Mya486.4 Mya

72 occurrences of Elrathia 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

72 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

28 formations

Conasauga — 34.20°N, 85.33°WConasauga — 34.15°N, 85.38°WShallow Bay — 49.25°N, 65.57°WHolm Dal — 82.42°N, 39.75°WWheeler — 39.40°N, 113.28°WWheeler — 39.52°N, 113.00°WBurgess Shale — 51.44°N, 116.47°WUpper Wheeler Shale — 39.00°N, 113.00°WUpper Wheeler Shale — 40.00°N, 114.00°WUpper Wheeler Shale — 40.00°N, 113.00°WWheeler Shale — 39.36°N, 111.59°WWheeler Shale — 39.20°N, 113.30°WWheeler Shale — 39.31°N, 113.29°WLead Bell Shale — 42.00°N, 112.00°WRennie Shale — 47.98°N, 116.35°WMarch Point — 48.48°N, 59.19°WMarch Point — 51.41°N, 56.45°WBright Angel — 35.99°N, 113.82°WLangston — 42.19°N, 112.25°WMuav Limestone — 35.82°N, 113.65°WStephen — 51.40°N, 116.48°WSt. Albans Shale — 44.48°N, 73.21°WBloomington — 42.19°N, 112.25°WPleasant Hill Limestone — 40.48°N, 75.05°WHenson Gletscher — 80.25°N, 62.50°WKunzam La — 33.07°N, 77.23°EUpper Comley Sandstone — 52.00°N, 2.00°WUte Limestone — 41.62°N, 111.80°WHillard Limestone — 64.95°N, 141.01°WDuchesnay — 50.63°N, 115.60°WLakeview — 47.97°N, 116.43°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Elrathia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Elrathia and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Elrathia and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

536 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 68 sites for Elrathia, 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

32 references

Each of the 72 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. 20 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 content3

Picture of Elrathia

Credit
Wilson44691
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Photogrammetry

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
elrathia kingii · MST:PALEO:MST-SP-6257

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC0 Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

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 itAlokistocaridae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Walcott 1924