Hibbertopterus

Hibbertopterus is a genus of eurypterid, a group of extinct marine arthropods. Fossils of Hibbertopterus have been discovered in deposits ranging from the Devonian period in Belgium, Scotland and the United States to the Carboniferous period in Scotland, Ireland, the Czech Republic and South Africa. The type species, H. scouleri, was first named as a species of the significantly different Eurypterus by Samuel Hibbert in 1836. The generic name Hibbertopterus, coined more than a century later, combines his name and the Greek word πτερόν (pteron) meaning "wing".

Hibbertopterus

Jocelyn FALCONNET · CC BY 4.0 · 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
HibbertopteridaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Eurypterida
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Eurypterida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Eurypterida
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Eurypterida

Time the record covers

At least 51 million years on record.

The record covers at least 358.86 Mya to 307 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 365.2 Mya to 303.7 Mya.

Devonian — about 1 of 4 occurrencesDevonianCarboniferous — about 3 of 4 occurrencesCarboniferous366–364 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences364–362 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences362–360 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences360–358 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences347–345 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences345–343 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences343–341 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences341–339 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences339–337 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences337–334 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences334–332 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences332–330 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences317–315 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences315–313 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences313–311 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences311–309 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences309–307 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences307–305 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences305–302 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences358.86 Mya307 Mya366 Mya302 Mya

4 occurrences of Hibbertopterus 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

4 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

4 formations

Kiltorcan — 52.45°N, 7.18°WAtrasado — 35.06°N, 106.19°WCoal Measures — 55.87°N, 3.96°WBathgate Hills Volcanic — 55.91°N, 3.62°W

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

Hibbertopterus and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Hibbertopterus and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

9 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Hibbertopterus, 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

4 references

Each of the 4 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 Hibbertopterus

Credit
Jocelyn FALCONNET
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Hibbertopterus 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 itHibbertopteridae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Kjellesvig-Waering 1959