Palaeopascichnus
Palaeopascichnus is an enigmatic form from the Ediacaran, consisting of a series of lobes. It was originally considered a trace fossil, but further research found it to be a body fossil, being the skeletal remains of an agglutinating organism.

Валдис Десяткин · CC BY-SA 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
- EukaryotaPBDB
Time the record covers
At most 97 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 635 Mya and 538.8 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
18 occurrences of Palaeopascichnus on record. 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
18 occurrencesThese 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
11 formations
- Rawnsley Quartzite Formation · Wilpena Group3
- Zimnie Gory Formation · Ust-Pinega Group2
- Lamtsa Formation2
- Verkhovka Formation2
- Zhengmuguan Formation2
- Stáhpogieddi Formation · Vestertana Group2
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The named rock units Palaeopascichnus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Found in the same rock
101 taxa- Aspidella11 sites
- Ediacaria7 sites
- Dickinsonia6 sites
- Charniodiscus4 sites
- Kimberella4 sites
- Paliella4 sites
- Parvancorina4 sites
- Tribrachidium4 sites
- Tribrachidium heraldicum4 sites
- Albumares3 sites
- Anfesta3 sites
- Dickinsonia costata3 sites
- Armillifera parva2 sites
- Beltanelloides2 sites
- Charnia2 sites
- Charnia masoni2 sites
- Coronacollina2 sites
- Cyanorus singularis2 sites
- Funisia2 sites
- Inaria2 sites
- Inaria limicola2 sites
- Intrites2 sites
- Irridinitus2 sites
- Kimberella quadrata2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Palaeopascichnus, 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
10 references- Patterns of distribution in the Ediacaran biotas: facies versus biogeography and evolution4
- New occurrences of Palaeopascichnus from the Stáhpogieddi Formation, Arctic Norway, and their bearing on the age of the Varanger Ice Age3
- How well do fossil assemblages of the Ediacara Biota tell time?2
- Problematic macrofossils from Ediacaran successions in the North China and Chaidam Blocks: implications for their evolutionary roots and biostratigraphic significance2
- Age of Neoproterozoic bilatarian body and trace fossils, White Sea, Russia: implications for metazoan evolution2
- Supplemental Data for Ediacaran Diversification Rates1
- Piecing together the puzzle of the Ediacara Biota: Excavation and reconstruction at the Ediacara National Heritage site Nilpena (South Australia)1
- New finds of skeletal fossils in the terminal Neoproterozoic of the Siberian Platform and Spain1
- Silicified Horodyskia and Palaeopascichnus from Upper Ediacaran cherts in south China: tentative phylogenetic interpretation and implications for evolutionary stasis1
- Integrated approaches to terminal Proterozoic stratigraphy: an example from the Olenek Uplift, northeastern Siberia1
Each of the 18 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 Palaeopascichnus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Валдис Десяткин
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
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 itEukaryota through time
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Palij 1976