Onychopterella

Onychopterella is a genus of predatory eurypterid, an extinct group of aquatic arthropods. Fossils of Onychopterella have been discovered in deposits from the Late Ordovician to the Late Silurian. The genus contains three species: O. kokomoensis, the type species, from the Early Pridoli epoch of Indiana; O. pumilus, from the Early Llandovery epoch of Illinois, both from the United States; and O. augusti, from the Late Hirnantian to Early Rhuddanian stages of South Africa.

Onychopterella

John Mason Clarke (1857-1925) and Rudolf Ruedemann (1864-1956) · Public Domain · 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
OnychopterellidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Eurypterida
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Eurypterida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Eurypterida
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Eurypterida

Time the record covers

At least 20 million years on record.

The record covers at least 443.1 Mya to 422.7 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 445.2 Mya to 419.62 Mya.

Ordovician — about 1 of 4 occurrencesOrdovicianSilurian — about 3 of 4 occurrencesSilurianDevonian — about 0 of 4 occurrences446–445 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences445–444 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences444–443 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences443–442 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences442–441 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences441–440 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences440–440 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences440–439 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences439–438 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences438–437 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences437–436 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences436–435 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences435–434 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences434–433 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences433–432 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences425–424 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences424–424 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences424–423 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences423–422 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences422–421 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences421–420 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences420–419 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences443.1 Mya422.7 Mya445.7 Mya419.1 Mya

4 occurrences of Onychopterella on record, most of them in the Silurian. 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

4 formations

Kokomo — 40.48°N, 86.13°WWilhelmi — 41.18°N, 88.19°WWabash — 40.48°N, 86.18°WCedarburg — 32.30°S, 18.97°E

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

Onychopterella and its relatives

Silurian

Where Onychopterella and its relatives were recorded in the Silurian.

Found in the same rock

51 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Onychopterella, 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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Onychopterella

Credit
John Mason Clarke (1857-1925) and Rudolf Ruedemann (1864-1956)
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Onychopterella 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 itOnychopterellidae through timeFormations of the SilurianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Størmer 1951