Paraceraurus

Paraceraurus is a genus of trilobites that lived in the Ordovician period. Its remains have been found in China, Estonia, Sweden and North America. These trilobites have a rounded and moderately convex cephalon. Glabella is convex or flattened, with a sub-rectangular outline. Thorax shows eleven segments.

Paraceraurus

Hectonichus · CC BY-SA 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
CheirurinaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Cheiruridae
Life habit
low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Trilobita
Motility
fast-movingPBDB, for Trilobita
Environment
marinePBDB, for Trilobita

Time the record covers

At least 8.6 million years on record.

The record covers at least 461.4 Mya to 452.8 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 464.3 Mya to 449.5 Mya.

Ordovician — about 18 of 18 occurrencesOrdovician465–464 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences464–464 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences464–463 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences463–463 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences463–462 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences462–462 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences462–461 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences461–461 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences461–460 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences460–460 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences460–459 Mya — about 1 occurrence459–458 Mya — about 1 occurrence458–458 Mya — about 1 occurrence458–457 Mya — about 1 occurrence457–457 Mya — about 1 occurrence457–456 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences456–456 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences456–455 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences455–455 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences455–454 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences454–454 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences454–453 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences453–453 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences453–452 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences452–452 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences452–451 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences451–451 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences451–450 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences450–450 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences450–449 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences461.4 Mya452.8 Mya464.8 Mya449 Mya

18 occurrences of Paraceraurus on record, most of them in the Ordovician. 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 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

Folkeslunda — 57.00°N, 17.00°EFolkeslunda — 60.91°N, 15.02°EBaota — 33.00°N, 106.00°EKandle — 59.42°N, 24.75°EMednikovo — 59.44°N, 28.79°EDalby — 57.00°N, 17.00°ESegerstad Limestone — 61.00°N, 15.00°ELinxiang — 33.00°N, 111.00°ESanqiaojia — 27.00°N, 103.00°EViivikonna — 59.44°N, 28.79°EMjøsa Limestone — 60.75°N, 11.02°ENakholmen — 59.92°N, 10.73°EViivikonna — 59.32°N, 24.51°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Paraceraurus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Paraceraurus and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Paraceraurus and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

259 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Paraceraurus, 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

12 references

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 Paraceraurus

Credit
Hectonichus
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Paraceraurus 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 itCheirurinae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Männil 1958