Luolishania

Luolishania is an extinct genus of lobopodian panarthropod and known from the Lower Cambrian Chiungchussu Formation of the Chengjiang County, Yunnan Province, China. A monotypic genus, it contains one species Luolishania longicruris. It was discovered and described by Hou Xian-Guang and Chen Jun-Yuan in 1989. It is one of the superarmoured Cambrian lobopodians suspected to be either an intermediate form in the origin of velvet worms (Onychophora) or basal to at least Tardigrada and Arthropoda. It is the basis of the family name Luolishaniidae, which also include other related lobopods such as Acinocricus, Collinsium, Facivermis, and Ovatiovermis. Along with Microdictyon, it is the first lobopodian fossil discovered from China.

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

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
LuolishaniidaPBDB
Diet
grazerPBDB
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB
Vision
limitedPBDB

Time the record covers

At most 6.5 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 521 Mya and 514.5 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Cambrian — about 9 of 9 occurrencesCambrian521–521 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences521–521 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences521–520 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences520–520 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences520–520 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences520–520 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences520–519 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences519–519 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences519–519 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences519–519 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences519–518 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences518–518 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences518–518 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences518–518 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences518–517 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences517–517 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences517–517 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences517–517 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences517–516 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences516–516 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences516–516 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences516–516 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences516–515 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences515–515 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences515–515 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences515–515 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences521.5 Mya514 Mya

9 occurrences of Luolishania 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

9 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

2 formations

Yu'anshan — 24.77°N, 102.58°EYuanshan — 24.81°N, 102.58°EYuanshan — 25.40°N, 103.38°E

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The named rock units Luolishania has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Luolishania and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Luolishania and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

174 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 8 sites for Luolishania, 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

4 references

Each of the 9 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 Luolishania

Credit
Woudloper
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Luolishania 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 itLuolishaniida through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.