Kouphichnium

Kouphichnium is an ichnogenus that has been attributed to limulids. Kouphichnium fossils resemble the footprints of birds, sometimes in conjunction with a medial line, and were initially thought to be bird or pterosaur tracks. The footprints are now believed to be the imprints of specialized limulid appendages, called pushers, terminating in four plates, used to push against the sediment. The medial line is left by the animal's telson. This ichnogenus is registered in the Carboniferous to the Cretaceous, in marine marginal environments in Tennessee, the United States and in Poland, as well as non-marine environments of Argentina and England, among others. The genus contains five species, K. arizonae, K. cordifomnis, K. lithographicum, K. minusculum and K. walchi.

A picture published with the record for Kouphichnium. What it shows has not been checked.

Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
IchnofossilsPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 235 million years on record.

The record covers at least 307.4 Mya to 72.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 318.7 Mya to 66 Mya.

Carboniferous — about 2 of 22 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 0 of 22 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 1 of 22 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 5 of 22 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 4 of 22 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 2 of 22 occurrencesEarly JurassicMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 22 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 6 of 22 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 22 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 1 of 22 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 22 occurrences324–315 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences315–306 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences306–297 Mya — about 1 occurrence254–245 Mya — about 5 occurrences245–236 Mya — about 1 occurrence227–219 Mya — about 2 occurrences219–210 Mya — about 2 occurrences210–201 Mya — about 1 occurrence201–192 Mya — about 2 occurrences157–149 Mya — about 2 occurrences149–140 Mya — about 4 occurrences140–131 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences131–122 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences122–114 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences78–70 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences70–61 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences307.4 Mya72.2 Mya324 Mya61 Mya

22 occurrences of Kouphichnium on record, most of them in the Late Jurassic. 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

22 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

14 formations

Grès à Voltzia — 49.15°N, 6.86°EGrès à Voltzia — 48.81°N, 7.24°EGrès à Voltzia — 48.78°N, 7.25°EGrès à Voltzia — 48.91°N, 7.21°ESolnhofen — 48.88°N, 11.00°ESolnhofen — 48.94°N, 11.33°EMoenave — 37.09°N, 113.56°WSloan Canyon — 36.94°N, 103.15°WSloan Canyon — 36.89°N, 103.35°WStranger — 38.57°N, 95.31°WEscondido — 27.75°N, 101.23°WPassaic — 40.83°N, 74.11°WPottsville — 33.81°N, 87.17°WCazals — 44.50°N, 1.32°EAgrio — 37.86°S, 69.99°WLiegende Bankkalk — 48.12°N, 8.87°EPopo Agie — 40.45°N, 109.29°WVossenveld — 51.97°N, 6.73°EMoenkopi — 37.81°N, 110.43°W

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The named rock units Kouphichnium 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.

Kouphichnium and its relatives

Late Jurassic

Where Kouphichnium and its relatives were recorded in the Late Jurassic.

Found in the same rock

235 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 20 sites for Kouphichnium, 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

16 references

Each of the 22 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. 4 further references are not listed. 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 Kouphichnium

Credit
Ghedoghedo
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Kouphichnium 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 itIchnofossils through timeFormations of the Late JurassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Nopcsa 1923