Eocteniza silvicola
Eocteniza is an extinct genus of arachnids containing the sole species Eocteniza silvicola, known from the Westphalian stage of the Carboniferous period in Coseley, England, about 313 million years ago to 304 million years ago. It was initially identified as a spider, but this is now doubted.

R.I. Pocock · 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
- EoctenizaPBDB
- Life habit
- solitaryPBDB, for Arachnida
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arachnida
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Arachnida
Time the record covers
At most 2.3 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 316.9 Mya and 314.6 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Eocteniza silvicola on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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
2 occurrences- Carboniferous100%
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.
Eocteniza silvicola and its relatives
CarboniferousWhere Eocteniza silvicola and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.
Found in the same rock
19 taxa- Anthracomartus hindi2 sites
- Anthracomartus priesti2 sites
- Compsoscorpius buthiformis2 sites
- Goniotarbus tuberculatus2 sites
- Plesiosiro madeleyi2 sites
- Weygoldtina anglica2 sites
- Aphthoroblattina eggintoni1 site
- Archaeometa nephilina1 site
- Archimylacris acadica1 site
- Curculioides mcluckiei1 site
- Geralinura britannica1 site
- Goniotarbus angulatus1 site
- Leptotarbus torpedo1 site
- Mesotarbus angustus1 site
- Mesotarbus eggintoni1 site
- Mesotarbus hindi1 site
- Proschizomus petrunkevitchi1 site
- Terpsicroton alticeps1 site
- Trigonotarbus johnsoni1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Eocteniza silvicola, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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
2 references- New spiders (Araneae: Mesothelae), from the Carboniferous of New Mexico and England, and a review of Paleozoic Araneae1
- Pocock, 19111
Each of the 2 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 Eocteniza silvicola
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- R.I. Pocock
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Eocteniza silvicola 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.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Eocteniza”
- 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 itEocteniza through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Pocock 1911