Lichidae

Ryan Somma · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikidata/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
- LichidaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Lichida
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Trilobita
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Trilobita
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Trilobita
Time the record covers
At least 91 million years on record.
The record covers at least 477.1 Mya to 385.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 486.85 Mya to 382.31 Mya.
1,085 occurrences of Lichidae 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
1,085 occurrences- Ordovician54%
- Silurian32%
- Devonian14%
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
296 formations
- Cape Phillips Formation40
- Delorme Formation40
- Boda Limestone Formation40
- Jupiter Formation · Anticosti Group34
- Motol Formation26
- Esbataottine Formation23
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The named rock units Lichidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 272 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 75 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Lichidae and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Lichidae and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
2,962 taxa- Amphilichas38 sites
- Gastropoda36 sites
- Crinoidea34 sites
- Bumastus29 sites
- Rugosa29 sites
- Bryozoa28 sites
- Ceratocephala28 sites
- Stenopareia28 sites
- Howellella27 sites
- Leonaspis27 sites
- Calyptaulax25 sites
- Bivalvia24 sites
- Leptaena24 sites
- Ostracoda24 sites
- Skenidioides24 sites
- Strophomena24 sites
- Platylichas23 sites
- Platystrophia23 sites
- Hemiarges21 sites
- Nautiloidea21 sites
- Sowerbyella21 sites
- Calymene20 sites
- Encrinurus20 sites
- Brachiopoda19 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 767 sites for Lichidae, and this reads 240 of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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
281 references- The Trilobites of the Leptæna Limestone in Dalarne60
- Early Silurian trilobites of Anticosti Island, Québec, Canada39
- Silurian trilobite associations in North America26
- The Asaphus Limestone in northernmost Öland25
- Scottish Silurian trilobites24
- The lichid trilobite Radiolichas in the Silurian of Arctic Canada and Gotland, Sweden22
- Upper Arenig trilobite biostratigraphy and sea-level changes at Lynna River near Volkhov, Russia20
- Silicified Lower Devonian trilobites from New South Wales20
- Late Ordovician and Silurian lichid trilobites from Northwestern Canada: Hemiarges, Borealarges, and Richterarges19
- Late Ordovician and Silurian lichid trilobites from northwestern Canada: eight new species from subfamilies Lichinae, Platylichinae, and Trochurinae19
- Trilobites from the Ordovician Balclatchie and lower Ardwell groups of the Girvan district, Scotland19
- Silicified Middle Ordovician trilobites from the South Nahanni River Area, District of Mackenzie, Canada18
Each of the 1,085 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. 269 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 Lichidae
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Ryan Somma
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Lichidae 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 itLichida through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hawle and Corda 1847