Hunanocephalus
Hunanocephalus is an extinct genus from a well-known class of fossil marine arthropods, the trilobites. It lived during the early part of the Botomian stage, which lasted from approximately 524 to 518.5 million years ago. This faunal stage was part of the Cambrian Period.
No picture of Hunanocephalus was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none. Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is. GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Hunanocephalus, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- OryctocephalidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Corynexochida
- Life habit
- nektobenthicPBDB, for Corynexochida
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Corynexochida
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Oryctocephalidae
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Trilobita
Time the record covers
At most 8.9 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 521 Mya and 512.1 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
9 occurrences of Hunanocephalus 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
9 occurrences- Cambrian100%
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
3 formations
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Hunanocephalus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Hunanocephalus and its relatives
CambrianWhere Hunanocephalus and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.
Found in the same rock
2 taxa- Estaingia1 site
- Sinodiscus changyangensis1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Hunanocephalus, 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
5 references- The Cambrian trilobites of western Zhejiang3
- Early Cambrian trilobites from the Hotang and Dachenling formations of Zhejiang3
- Morphology and ontogeny of Hunanocephalus ovalis (trilobite) from the Cambrian of South China1
- Early Cambrian eodiscoid trilobites of the Yangtze Platform and their stratigraphic implications1
- Early Cambrian trilobite fauna of Kunshan, Jiangsu1
Each of the 9 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 content0
No picture of Hunanocephalus was found. Wikipedia, Wikidata and iDigBio were searched and had none.
Smithsonian Open Access did not answer, so this is what the others held rather than everything there is.
GBIF was asked, and what came back is not recorded: nothing, or a picture this site could not tie to Hunanocephalus, or no answer at all. This entry cannot say which.
No 3D scan of Hunanocephalus was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itOryctocephalidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lee 1963