Palinurus

Palinurus is a genus of spiny lobsters in the family Palinuridae, native to the eastern Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and western Indian Ocean. A 110-million-year-old fossil, recognisable as a member of the genus Palinurus, was discovered in a quarry in El Espinal in Mexico's Chiapas state in 1995 and named P. palaciosi.

Palinurus

Georges Jansoone ( JoJan ) · CC BY 3.0 · 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
PalinuridaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Decapoda
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Palinuridae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Malacostraca
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Malacostraca

Time the record covers

At least 59 million years on record.

The record covers at least 143.1 Mya to 83.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 149.2 Mya to 72.2 Mya.

Late Jurassic — about 2 of 19 occurrencesLate JurassicEarly Cretaceous — about 9 of 19 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 8 of 19 occurrencesLate Cretaceous151–148 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences148–145 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences145–143 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences135–132 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences132–129 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences129–127 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences127–124 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences124–121 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences121–119 Mya — about 1 occurrence119–116 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences116–113 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences113–111 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences111–108 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences108–105 Mya — about 1 occurrence105–103 Mya — about 2 occurrences103–100 Mya — about 1 occurrence100–97 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences97–95 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences95–92 Mya — about 1 occurrence92–89 Mya — about 1 occurrence87–84 Mya — about 2 occurrences84–81 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences81–79 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences79–76 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences76–73 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences73–71 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences143.1 Mya83.6 Mya151 Mya71 Mya

19 occurrences of Palinurus on record, most of them in the Early Cretaceous. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

19 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

12 formations

Pflugerville — 30.33°N, 97.71°WGober Chalk — 33.00°N, 95.00°WGober Chalk — 33.57°N, 95.72°WTambo — 23.36°S, 144.70°ETambo — 23.27°S, 144.74°EStramberk — 49.59°N, 18.12°ESierra Madre — 16.68°N, 93.46°WSan Lucas — 17.44°N, 99.54°WBritton — 32.00°N, 96.00°WEl Doctor — 20.75°N, 99.34°WElm Fork Shale — 32.87°N, 96.93°WPawpaw — 32.92°N, 97.33°WBilá Hora — 50.08°N, 14.32°EAtherfield Clay — 50.60°N, 1.32°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Palinurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Palinurus and its relatives

Early Cretaceous

Where Palinurus and its relatives were recorded in the Early Cretaceous.

Found in the same rock

232 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 14 sites for Palinurus, 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

17 references

Each of the 19 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. 5 further references are not listed. 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 Palinurus

Credit
Georges Jansoone ( JoJan )
Licence
CC BY 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Palinurus 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 itPalinuridae through timeFormations of the Early CretaceousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Weber 1795