Psammichnites

Psammichnites is an ichnogenus of trace fossils consisting primarily of large, horizontal locomotory burrows preserved in sandy or silty substrates. The traces are particularly characteristic of shallow-marine environments and are known from the Palaeozoic, with their earliest appearance dating back to the Fortunian Stage of the Cambrian. Psammichnites is notable for its large size, complex internal structure, and ability to record prolonged locomotion and sediment reworking over considerable distances.

A picture published with the record for Psammichnites. What it shows has not been checked.

Zekun Wang · CC BY 4.0 · 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
IchnofossilsPBDB

Time the record covers

At least 395 million years on record.

The record covers at least 538.8 Mya to 143.1 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 635 Mya to 137.05 Mya.

Cambrian — about 12 of 17 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 1 of 17 occurrencesOrdovicianSilurian — about 0 of 17 occurrencesDevonian — about 0 of 17 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 0 of 17 occurrencesPermian — about 0 of 17 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 17 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 17 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 17 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 17 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 17 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 17 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 17 occurrences645–628 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences628–610 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences610–593 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences593–576 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences576–559 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences559–541 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences541–524 Mya — about 3 occurrences524–507 Mya — about 10 occurrences490–472 Mya — about 1 occurrence144–127 Mya — about 1 occurrence538.8 Mya143.1 Mya645 Mya127 Mya

17 occurrences of Psammichnites 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

9 formations

Pedroche — 37.95°N, 4.77°WChernyi Kamen — 58.08°N, 58.85°EWulongqing — 24.93°N, 102.82°EChulaktau — 43.47°N, 69.87°EBeach — 47.63°N, 52.92°WHoucheng — 40.92°N, 118.16°EWood Canyon — 36.11°N, 116.16°WPusa Shale — 39.67°N, 5.03°WStáhpogieddi — 70.58°N, 28.08°E

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The named rock units Psammichnites has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Psammichnites and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Psammichnites and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

91 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Psammichnites, 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

10 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 Psammichnites

Credit
Zekun Wang
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Psammichnites 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 itIchnofossils through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Torell 1870