Gonatocaris

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
- GonatocarididaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Phyllocarida
- Life habit
- nektobenthicPBDB, for Phyllocarida
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Phyllocarida
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Malacostraca
Time the record covers
At most 3.1 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 422.7 Mya and 419.62 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Gonatocaris on record, most of them in the Silurian. 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- Silurian100%
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
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The named rock units Gonatocaris has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Gonatocaris and its relatives
SilurianWhere Gonatocaris and its relatives were recorded in the Silurian.
Found in the same rock
26 taxa- Acutiramus macrophthalmus1 site
- Annelida1 site
- Anthozoa1 site
- Ascograptus1 site
- Bivalvia1 site
- Bryozoa1 site
- Buffalopterus pustulosus1 site
- Camarotoechia1 site
- Cephalopoda1 site
- Climacograptus1 site
- Dolichopterus1 site
- Erettopterus grandis1 site
- Eurypterus dekayi1 site
- Eurypterus remipes1 site
- Eusarcana1 site
- Gastropoda1 site
- Howellella1 site
- Inocaulis1 site
- Leperditia1 site
- Lingulidae1 site
- Medusaegraptus1 site
- Orbiculoidea1 site
- Paleodictyota sp.1 site
- Pterygotus cobbi1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Gonatocaris, 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
1 referenceEach 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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1

Picture of Gonatocaris
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Gonatocaris 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 itGonatocarididae through timeFormations of the SilurianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Guerich 1929