Pentazonia

Pentazonia is a taxonomic infraclass of millipedes containing the pill-millipedes (Oniscomorpha) which can roll into a ball and the order Glomeridesmida which cannot. Defining traits (apomorphies) include divided sternites, a labrum with single median tooth, and an enlarged pygidium on the hind-most body segment. Pentazonia is in the dominant millipede subclass Chilognatha which have a calcified exoskeleton and modified sperm-transferring legs in males. In contrast to the Helminthomorpha – the other Chilognathan infraclass, the sperm-transferring legs are located on posterior body segments and known as telopods. Pentazonians are relatively short-bodied, with between 13 and 21 body segments. The Pentazonia contains one extinct order, Amynilyspedida, often referred to the Oniscomorpha.

Pentazonia

Ralf Janssen, Nikola-Michael Prpic and Wim GM Damen · CC BY 2.0 · 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
ChilognathaPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda

Time the record covers

At least 406 million years on record.

The record covers at least 426.7 Mya to 20.45 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 432.9 Mya to 13.82 Mya.

Silurian — about 1 of 26 occurrencesDevonian — about 0 of 26 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 16 of 26 occurrencesCarboniferousPermian — about 0 of 26 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 26 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 26 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 26 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 26 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 26 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 26 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 26 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 5 of 26 occurrencesPaleocene — about 0 of 26 occurrencesEocene — about 3 of 26 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 26 occurrencesMiocene — about 1 of 26 occurrences441–427 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences427–412 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences325–311 Mya — about 6 occurrences311–296 Mya — about 10 occurrences107–93 Mya — about 5 occurrences49–34 Mya — about 3 occurrences34–20 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences20–5.4 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences426.7 Mya20.45 Mya441 Mya5 Mya

26 occurrences of Pentazonia on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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

26 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

5 formations

Kladno — 49.71°N, 13.21°ECarbondale — 41.34°N, 88.39°WJoggins — 45.70°N, 64.45°WFish Bed — 55.54°N, 3.92°WBrooch — 52.66°N, 2.17°W

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The named rock units Pentazonia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 12 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Pentazonia and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Pentazonia and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

1,405 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 17 sites for Pentazonia, 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

11 references

Each of the 26 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 Pentazonia

Credit
Ralf Janssen, Nikola-Michael Prpic and Wim GM Damen
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Pentazonia 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 itChilognatha through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Brandt 1833