Forfexicaris

Searched as Forfexicaris valida. The Paleobiology Database treats Forfexicaris as the accepted name.

Forfexicaris valida is a species of Lower Cambrian arthropod, the only species in the family Forfexicarididae. It is known from only two specimens from the Maotianshan shale Lagerstätte.

Forfexicaris

Uncredited · 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
ArthropodaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
nektonicPBDB
Motility
passively mobilePBDB

Time the record covers

At most 8 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 514.5 Mya and 506.5 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Cambrian — about 1 of 1 occurrenceCambrian515–514 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences514–514 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences514–514 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences514–514 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences514–513 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences513–513 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences513–513 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences513–512 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences512–512 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences512–512 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences512–511 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences511–511 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences511–511 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences511–511 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences511–510 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences510–510 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences510–510 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences510–509 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences509–509 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences509–509 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences509–508 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences508–508 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences508–508 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences508–508 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences508–507 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences507–507 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences507–507 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences507–506 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences515 Mya506 Mya

1 occurrence of Forfexicaris 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

1 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

1 formation

Balang — 26.39°N, 107.69°E

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The named rock units Forfexicaris has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Forfexicaris and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Forfexicaris and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

8 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Forfexicaris, 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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Forfexicaris

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Forfexicaris 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

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 itArthropoda through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hou 1999