Hystricurus
Searched as Hystricurus (Guizhouhystricurus) sp.. The Paleobiology Database treats Hystricurus as the accepted name.

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
- HystricuridaePBDB
- Diet
- deposit feederPBDB, for Proetida
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Trilobita
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Trilobita
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Hystricuridae
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Trilobita
Time the record covers
At most 1.8 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 474.9 Mya and 473.1 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Hystricurus on record, most of them in the Ordovician. 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- Ordovician100%
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 Hystricurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Hystricurus and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Hystricurus and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
469 taxa- Syntrophina18 sites
- Lingulella17 sites
- Gastropoda14 sites
- Asaphellus13 sites
- Parahystricurus smithiae13 sites
- Hillyardina levis12 sites
- Diaphelasma11 sites
- Lecanospira11 sites
- Leiostegium11 sites
- Randaynia saundersi11 sites
- Symphysurina11 sites
- Hyperbolochilus10 sites
- Parahystricurus9 sites
- Cephalopoda8 sites
- Nanorthis8 sites
- Bolbocephalus convexus7 sites
- Drepanodus7 sites
- Echinodermata7 sites
- Finkelnburgia7 sites
- Hillyardina7 sites
- Apatokephalus6 sites
- Bolbocephalus seelyi6 sites
- Dictyonema6 sites
- Eocrinoidea6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 133 sites for Hystricurus, 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 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. 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 Hystricurus
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Hystricurus 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itHystricuridae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Raymond 1913