Octomedusa pieckorum

Octomedusa is a genus of extinct scyphozoan jellyfish known from the Late Carboniferous sediments of the Mazon Creek fossil beds. It contains a single species, O. pieckorum. It was first described by Gordon Johnson and Eugene S. Richardson, Jr. in 1968, where its holotype and paratype being unearthed by Mr. and Mrs. Ted Piecko. Fossils of the jellyfish occur and other organisms occur in iron-stone concentrations. Octomedusa was described by Foster (1979) as representing a primitive coronate, however these affinities have been challenged and Octomedusa has had many more affinities after. O. pieckorum is the type species of the genus Octomedusa.

Octomedusa pieckorum

Ta-tea-two-te-to · CC BY 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
OctomedusaPBDB
Vision
blindPBDB, for Scyphozoa

Time the record covers

At most 6.8 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 312.8 Mya and 306 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Carboniferous — about 1 of 1 occurrenceCarboniferous313–313 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences313–313 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences313–312 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences312–312 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences312–312 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences312–311 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences311–311 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences311–311 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences311–311 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences311–310 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences310–310 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences310–310 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences310–310 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences310–309 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences309–309 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences309–309 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences309–309 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences309–308 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences308–308 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences308–308 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences308–308 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences308–307 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences307–307 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences307–307 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences307–307 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences307–306 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences306–306 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences306–306 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences313.3 Mya305.5 Mya

1 occurrence of Octomedusa pieckorum on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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

1 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

1 formation

Carbondale — 41.22°N, 88.22°W

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

Octomedusa pieckorum and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Octomedusa pieckorum and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

6 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Octomedusa pieckorum, 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 1 occurrence 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 Octomedusa pieckorum

Credit
Ta-tea-two-te-to
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Octomedusa pieckorum 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 itOctomedusa through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Johnson and Richardson 1968