Mackenzia

Mackenzia is an elongated bag-like animal known from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale. It attached directly to hard surfaces, such as brachiopod shells. 14 specimens of Mackenzia are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise <0.1% of the community. Mackenzia was originally described by Charles Walcott in 1911 as a holothurian echinoderm. Later, Mackenzia is thought to be a cnidarian and appears most similar to modern sea anemones.

Mackenzia

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
MackenziidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB

Time the record covers

At most 9.2 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 514.5 Mya and 505.3 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Cambrian — about 4 of 4 occurrencesCambrian515–514 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences514–514 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences514–514 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences514–513 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences513–513 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences513–513 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences513–512 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences512–512 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences512–512 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences512–511 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences511–511 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences511–511 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences511–510 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences510–510 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences510–510 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences510–509 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences509–509 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences509–509 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences509–508 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences508–508 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences508–508 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences508–507 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences507–507 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences507–507 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences507–506 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences506–506 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences506–505 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences505–505 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences515 Mya504.8 Mya

4 occurrences of Mackenzia 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

4 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

Burgess Shale — 51.44°N, 116.47°WBurgess Shale — 51.38°N, 116.43°WBalang — 28.42°N, 109.42°E

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

Mackenzia and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Mackenzia and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

200 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Mackenzia, 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

3 references

Each of the 4 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Mackenzia

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

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itMackenziidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Walcott 1911