Merlinia

Merlinia is an extinct genus from a well-known class of fossil marine arthropods, the trilobites. It lived during the early part of the Arenig stage of the Ordovician Period, a faunal stage which lasted from approximately 478 to 471 million years ago. These trilobites were named after the Welsh wizard Merlin, as the fossilised tails (pygidia) of trilobites were often mistaken for petrified butterflies, and were hence linked with mythological tales involving Merlin.

Merlinia

via GBIF · CC BY-NC 4.0 · via GBIF. 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
OgygiocaridinaePBDB
Diet
detritivorePBDB
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB
Motility
fast-movingPBDB
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Asaphidae
Environment
marinePBDB, for Trilobita

Time the record covers

At least 5.8 million years on record.

The record covers at least 473.8 Mya to 468 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 486.4 Mya to 461.1 Mya.

Cambrian — about 0 of 32 occurrencesOrdovician — about 32 of 32 occurrencesOrdovician487–486 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences486–485 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences485–484 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences484–483 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences483–483 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences483–482 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences482–481 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences481–480 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences480–479 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences479–478 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences478–477 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences477–476 Mya — about 4 occurrences476–476 Mya — about 4 occurrences476–475 Mya — about 4 occurrences475–474 Mya — about 4 occurrences474–473 Mya — about 3 occurrences473–472 Mya — about 3 occurrences472–471 Mya — about 3 occurrences471–470 Mya — about 2 occurrences470–469 Mya — about 1 occurrence469–468 Mya — about 1 occurrence468–468 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences468–467 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences467–466 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences466–465 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences465–464 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences464–463 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences463–462 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences462–461 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences461–461 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences473.8 Mya468 Mya486.9 Mya460.6 Mya

32 occurrences of Merlinia 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

32 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

6 formations

Suri — 29.00°S, 68.00°WSuri — 28.00°S, 68.00°WSuri — 28.66°S, 68.84°WSuri — 28.67°S, 67.73°WSuri — 28.00°S, 67.00°WSuri — 27.63°S, 67.63°WCarmarthen — 51.84°N, 4.30°WOgof Hen — 51.88°N, 5.33°WOgof Hen — 51.82°N, 4.37°WOgof Hen — 51.85°N, 4.31°WAcoite — 24.00°S, 66.00°WAcoite — 23.00°S, 66.00°WSepulturas — 22.92°S, 65.62°WAzul Pampa — 23.00°S, 65.00°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Merlinia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Merlinia and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Merlinia and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

125 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 29 sites for Merlinia, 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

12 references

Each of the 32 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 Merlinia

Source
GBIF
Credit
via GBIF
Licence
CC BY-NC 4.0
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

No 3D scan of Merlinia 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 itOgygiocaridinae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Fortey and Owens 1978