Plenocaris

Plenocaris plena is a genus of extinct bivalved hymenocarine arthropod that lived in the Cambrian aged Burgess Shale and Chengjiang. Originally described as a species of Yohoia by Walcott in 1912, it was placed into its own genus in 1974.

Plenocaris

Jean-Bernard Caron · CC0 · 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
ArthropodaPBDB
Diet
detritivore, carnivorePBDB
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB

Time the record covers

At most 13 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 509.7 Mya and 497 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Cambrian — about 17 of 17 occurrencesCambrian510–509 Mya — about 1 occurrence509–509 Mya — about 2 occurrences509–508 Mya — about 2 occurrences508–508 Mya — about 2 occurrences508–507 Mya — about 2 occurrences507–507 Mya — about 2 occurrences507–507 Mya — about 2 occurrences507–506 Mya — about 2 occurrences506–506 Mya — about 2 occurrences506–505 Mya — about 1 occurrence505–505 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences505–504 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences504–504 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences504–503 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences503–503 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences503–502 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences502–502 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences502–502 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences502–501 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences501–501 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences501–500 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences500–500 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences500–499 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences499–499 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences499–498 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences498–498 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences498–497 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences497–497 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences510.2 Mya496.5 Mya

17 occurrences of Plenocaris on record, most of them in the Cambrian. 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

17 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

2 formations

Burgess Shale — 51.44°N, 116.47°WBurgess Shale — 51.39°N, 116.43°WStephen — 51.40°N, 116.48°W

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The named rock units Plenocaris has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Plenocaris and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Plenocaris and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

162 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 16 sites for Plenocaris, 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

4 references

Each of the 17 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 Plenocaris

Credit
Jean-Bernard Caron
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Plenocaris 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 itArthropoda through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.