Molaria
Molaria is a genus of Cambrian arthropod, the type species M. spinifera is known from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale. 144 specimens of Molaria are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise 0.27% of the community. A second species M. steini was described from the Sirius Passet in Greenland in 2017.
Han Zeng · CC0 · 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
- ArtiopodaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB
- Life habit
- nektobenthicPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB
Time the record covers
At most 13 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 509.7 Mya and 497 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
20 occurrences of Molaria 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
20 occurrences- Cambrian100%
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 Formation · Chancellor Group19
- Stephen Formation1
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The named rock units Molaria has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Molaria and its relatives
CambrianWhere Molaria and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.
Found in the same rock
161 taxa- Liangshanella19 sites
- Diraphora18 sites
- Ehmaniella burgessensis18 sites
- Hazelia18 sites
- Marrella splendens18 sites
- Selkirkia columbia18 sites
- Wiwaxia corrugata18 sites
- Canadaspis perfecta17 sites
- Morania17 sites
- Ottoia prolifica17 sites
- Pentagnostus praecurrens17 sites
- Yohoia17 sites
- Burgessia16 sites
- Naraoia compacta16 sites
- Scenella amii16 sites
- Sidneyia16 sites
- Waptia fieldensis16 sites
- Haplophrentis carinatus15 sites
- Laggania15 sites
- Micromitra15 sites
- Perspicaris15 sites
- Pollingeria grandis15 sites
- Takakkawia lineata15 sites
- Trilobita15 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 19 sites for Molaria, 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- Paleoecology of the Greater Phyllopod Bed community, Burgess Shale18
- Paleocommunity analysis of the Burgess Shale Tulip Beds, Mount Stephen, British Columbia: Comparison with the Walcott Quarry and implications for community variation in the Burgess Shale1
- A new phyllopod bed-like assemblage from the Burgess Shale of the Canadian Rockies1
Each of the 20 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 Molaria
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Han Zeng
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Molaria 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Molaria”
- 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 itArtiopoda through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.