Maotianoascus octonarius

Maotianoascus octonarius is an extinct species of stem-group ctenophore, known from the Chinese Maotianshan shales of Yunnan. It is dated to Cambrian Stage 3 and belongs to late Early Cambrian strata.

Maotianoascus octonarius

Uncredited · 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
MaotianoascusPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Maotianoascus
Life habit
nektonicPBDB, for Maotianoascus
Motility
passively mobilePBDB, for Maotianoascus

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 2 of 2 occurrencesCambrian521–521 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences521–521 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences521–520 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences520–520 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences520–520 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences520–520 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences520–519 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences519–519 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences519–519 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences519–519 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences519–518 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences518–518 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences518–518 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences518–518 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences518–517 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences517–517 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences517–517 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences517–517 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences517–516 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences516–516 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences516–516 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences516–516 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences516–515 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences515–515 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences515–515 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences515–515 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences521.5 Mya514 Mya

2 occurrences of Maotianoascus octonarius 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

2 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

Heilinpu — 24.69°N, 102.49°EYuanshan — 24.75°N, 102.90°E

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

Maotianoascus octonarius and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Maotianoascus octonarius and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

5 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Maotianoascus octonarius, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.

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

1 reference

Each of the 2 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 Maotianoascus octonarius

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Maotianoascus octonarius was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itMaotianoascus through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Chen and Zhou 1997