Lepidocoleus

Lepidocoleus is a genus of extinct armored annelid worm in the class Machaeridia. Two notable species are L. caliburnus or the "Excalibur worm", and L. shurikenus, or the "shuriken worm". The creature had a "suit" of armor running down its body in the form of overlapping calcite crystals. This worm probably lived in shallow water reefs feeding on organic waste. It lived from the Hirnantian of the upper Ordovician to the Famennian of the Devonian.

Lepidocoleus

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
LepidocoleidaePBDB
Diet
grazerPBDB, for Machaeridia
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Machaeridia
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Machaeridia
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Polychaeta

Time the record covers

At least 74 million years on record.

The record covers at least 468 Mya to 393.47 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 477.1 Mya to 387.95 Mya.

Ordovician — about 30 of 40 occurrencesOrdovicianSilurian — about 4 of 40 occurrencesSilurianDevonian — about 6 of 40 occurrencesDevonian479–476 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences476–473 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences473–470 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences470–467 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences467–463 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences463–460 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences460–457 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences457–454 Mya — about 3 occurrences454–451 Mya — about 3 occurrences451–448 Mya — about 16 occurrences448–445 Mya — about 4 occurrences445–442 Mya — about 1 occurrence442–439 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences439–436 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences436–433 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences433–429 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences429–426 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences426–423 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences423–420 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences420–417 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences411–408 Mya — about 1 occurrence408–405 Mya — about 1 occurrence405–402 Mya — about 1 occurrence402–399 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences395–392 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences392–389 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences389–386 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences468 Mya393.47 Mya479 Mya386 Mya

40 occurrences of Lepidocoleus 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

40 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

23 formations

Kope — 39.00°N, 84.00°WKope — 39.06°N, 84.44°WKráluv Dvur — 50.03°N, 14.31°EFjacka Shale — 58.00°N, 12.00°EWaynesville — 39.45°N, 83.83°WWaynesville — 39.33°N, 84.07°WFairview — 39.00°N, 84.00°WUtica Shale — 43.21°N, 75.46°WBellevue — 39.00°N, 84.00°WCorryville — 39.00°N, 84.00°WMount Auburn — 39.00°N, 84.00°WFiddlers Green — 42.85°N, 78.80°WNicolet River — 45.37°N, 73.44°WSularp Shale — 55.71°N, 13.32°EJerrestad Shale — 55.54°N, 14.29°EStinava-Chabicov — 49.85°N, 17.52°ELandeyran — 43.47°N, 3.08°EWayne — 38.08°N, 87.02°WDufton Shales — 54.72°N, 2.48°WSularp — 55.71°N, 13.32°EHughley Shales — 52.63°N, 2.52°WMerzâ- Akhsaï — 29.90°N, 6.85°WRust — 43.28°N, 75.14°WSheguiandah — 45.92°N, 82.11°WDecorah — 43.12°N, 91.27°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Lepidocoleus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Lepidocoleus and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Lepidocoleus and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

548 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 36 sites for Lepidocoleus, 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

22 references

Each of the 40 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. 10 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 Lepidocoleus

Source
iDigBio
Credit
via iDigBio
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Lepidocoleus 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 itLepidocoleidae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Faber 1886