Kuanyangia
Kuanyangia 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.

Woudloper · CC BY-SA 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
- RedlichiidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Redlichiidae
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Trilobita
Time the record covers
At most 33 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 538.8 Mya and 506.5 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
8 occurrences of Kuanyangia 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
8 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
4 formations
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Kuanyangia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Kuanyangia and its relatives
CambrianWhere Kuanyangia and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.
Found in the same rock
176 taxa- Yunnanocephalus yunnanensis6 sites
- Fuxianhuia protensa5 sites
- Leanchoilia illecebrosa5 sites
- Misszhouia longicaudata5 sites
- Branchiocaris yunnanensis4 sites
- Chuandianella ovata4 sites
- Eoredlichia intermediata4 sites
- Heliomedusa orienta4 sites
- Isoxys auritus4 sites
- Kunmingella douvillei4 sites
- Mafangscolex sinensis4 sites
- Naraoia spinosa4 sites
- Paraleptomitella dictyodroma4 sites
- Pectocaris4 sites
- Saetaspongia densa4 sites
- Acanthomeridion serratum3 sites
- Choiaella radiata3 sites
- Cindarella eucalla3 sites
- Combinivalvula chengjiangensis3 sites
- Diandongia pista3 sites
- Isoxys paradoxus3 sites
- Leptomitus teretiusculus3 sites
- Retifacies abnormalis3 sites
- Urokodia aequalis3 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Kuanyangia, 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
6 references- A Chengjiang-type fossil assemblage from the Hongjingshao Formation (Cambrian Stage 3) at Chenggong, Kunming, Yunnan2
- Early Cambrian Chengjiang fauna in eastern Yunnan, CHina2
- Diversity and species abundance patterns of the early Cambrian (Series 2, Stage 3) Chengjiang Biota from China1
- Spatial variation in the diversity and composition of the Lower Cambrian (Series 2, Stage 3) Chengjiang Biota, Southwest China1
- Lower Cambrian Burgess Shale-type fossil associations of South China1
- Arthropods of the Lower Cambrian Chengjiang fauna, southwest China1
Each of the 8 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 Kuanyangia
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Woudloper
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Kuanyangia 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Kuanyangia”
- 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 itRedlichiidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hupe 1953