Placoparia

Placoparia is a genus of trilobites of average size that lived during the late Lower to the early Upper Ordovician on the paleocontinents Gondwana, Avalonia and Laurentia, now the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Morocco, Portugal, Spain and Wales. Its headshield is semi-circular to rectangular with rounded frontal corners. It lacks eyes, but eye ridges are present. The fact that the facial sutures are opisthoparian is an exception in the otherwise proparian Cheirurina. The thorax has 11 or 12 segments, with the axis slightly wider than the ribs to its sides. The tips of the pleurae are free, which resembles an old-fashion central heating radiator. The axis in the small tailshield consists of four rings and a minute endpiece. The four pleurae end in spatulate spines that fit to corresponding indentations in the cephalon.

Placoparia

Dwergenpaartje · 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
PliomeridaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Trilobita
Life habit
low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Trilobita
Motility
fast-movingPBDB, for Trilobita
Vision
blindPBDB
Environment
marinePBDB, for Trilobita

Time the record covers

At least 13 million years on record.

The record covers at least 471.3 Mya to 458.2 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 477.1 Mya to 449.5 Mya.

Ordovician — about 69 of 69 occurrencesOrdovician478–477 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences477–476 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences476–475 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences475–474 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences474–473 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences473–472 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences472–471 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences471–470 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences470–469 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences469–468 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences468–467 Mya — about 3 occurrences467–466 Mya — about 3 occurrences466–465 Mya — about 3 occurrences465–464 Mya — about 3 occurrences464–463 Mya — about 3 occurrences463–462 Mya — about 3 occurrences462–461 Mya — about 3 occurrences461–460 Mya — about 15 occurrences460–459 Mya — about 18 occurrences459–459 Mya — about 4 occurrences459–458 Mya — about 2 occurrences458–457 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences457–456 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences456–455 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences455–454 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences454–453 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences453–452 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences452–451 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences451–450 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences450–449 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences471.3 Mya458.2 Mya477.7 Mya448.9 Mya

69 occurrences of Placoparia 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

69 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

33 formations

Untere Quartzite — 38.86°N, 4.08°WUntere Quartzite — 39.05°N, 4.17°WLlanfallteg — 52.00°N, 5.00°WLlanfallteg — 51.83°N, 4.67°WLlanfallteg — 51.85°N, 4.92°WNavas de Estena — 39.00°N, 4.00°WNavas de Estena — 39.47°N, 4.48°WNavas de Estena — 39.52°N, 4.19°WRio-Schiefer — 39.60°N, 5.24°WPizarras Guindo — 38.70°N, 3.77°WPizarras Guindo — 38.76°N, 4.56°WPizarras Guindo — 38.62°N, 3.68°WTachilla — 32.00°N, 4.00°WTachilla — 31.40°N, 5.33°WTachilla — 31.45°N, 4.17°WLiben — 49.82°N, 13.70°ELiben — 49.68°N, 13.47°EValongo — 41.00°N, 8.00°WSueve Shale — 43.00°N, 5.00°WSueve Shale — 43.47°N, 5.15°WDobrotivá — 50.10°N, 14.34°ESan Marcos — 40.93°N, 2.05°WSan Marcos — 40.72°N, 1.55°WMytton Flags and Tankerville — 53.00°N, 3.00°WTankerville — 53.00°N, 3.00°WPontyfenni — 52.00°N, 5.00°WLetna — 50.00°N, 14.00°ESchistes Botella — 38.00°N, 4.00°WKermeur — 47.79°N, 3.80°WSchistes de Morgat — 48.25°N, 4.47°WSchistes d'Angers — 47.52°N, 0.67°WAndouille — 48.00°N, 1.00°WValle Syncline Green and Nodular Shales — 38.00°N, 6.00°WFonte da Horta — 40.00°N, 8.00°WArroyo del Acebron Shales — 39.00°N, 4.00°WOuine-Inirne — 31.07°N, 5.13°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Placoparia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 9 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Placoparia and its relatives

Ordovician

Where Placoparia and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.

Found in the same rock

490 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 67 sites for Placoparia, 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

34 references

Each of the 69 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. 22 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 Placoparia

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

No 3D scan of Placoparia 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 itPliomeridae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Hawle and Corda 1847