Pseudosphaerexochus

via iDigBio · via iDigBio. 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
- SphaerexochinaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Cheiruridae
- Life habit
- low-level epifaunalPBDB, for Trilobita
- Motility
- fast-movingPBDB, for Trilobita
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Trilobita
Time the record covers
At least 26 million years on record.
The record covers at least 469.4 Mya to 443.1 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 486.85 Mya to 432.9 Mya.
115 occurrences of Pseudosphaerexochus 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
115 occurrences- Ordovician99%
- Silurianunder 1%
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
54 formations
- Kildare Limestone Formation12
- Ulunda Mudstone Formation8
- Jonstorp Formation6
- Boda Limestone Formation5
- Solvang Formation4
- Cliffield Formation4
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The named rock units Pseudosphaerexochus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 30 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Pseudosphaerexochus and its relatives
OrdovicianWhere Pseudosphaerexochus and its relatives were recorded in the Ordovician.
Found in the same rock
1,326 taxa- Illaenus17 sites
- Remopleurides13 sites
- Lonchodomas12 sites
- Dionide11 sites
- Sowerbyella11 sites
- Christiania9 sites
- Platylichas9 sites
- Sphaerexochus calvus9 sites
- Stenopareia9 sites
- Tretaspis9 sites
- Sphaerocoryphe8 sites
- Cyclopyge7 sites
- Gravicalymene7 sites
- Holotrachelus punctillosus7 sites
- Leptaena7 sites
- Phillipsinella7 sites
- Prionocheilus7 sites
- Chasmops6 sites
- Decoroproetus6 sites
- Leangella6 sites
- Lonchodomas pennatus6 sites
- Prionocheilus obtusus6 sites
- Sphaerocoryphe punctata6 sites
- Trinodus tardus6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 98 sites for Pseudosphaerexochus, 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
49 references- Cheirurina (Trilobita) from the upper Ordovician of Västergötland and other regions of Sweden18
- The Trilobites of the Chair of Kildare Limestone (Upper Ordovician) of Eastern Ireland11
- The Trilobites of the Leptæna Limestone in Dalarne11
- Revision der ostbaltischen silurischen Trilobiten. Abtheilung I: Phacopiden, Cheiruriden und Encrinuriden5
- Stratigraphy of the Lower Middle Ordovician of Tazewell County, Virginia4
- Trilobites ordoviciens du Massif armoricain3
- Trinucleid trilobites from the higher Dufton shales of the Caradoc series in the Cross Fell inlier3
- Om de Chasmopskalken och Trinicleusskiffern motsvarande bildningarne I Skane3
- The Lower Palaeozoic trilobites of the Girvan district, Ayrshire. Part 33
- Late Ordovician rostroconchs (Mollusca) from fluvial erratics in northwestern Europe2
- Ordovician (Darriwilian-early Katian) trilobite faunas of northwestern Tarim, Xinjiang, China2
- The only known cyclopygid–‘atheloptic’ trilobite fauna from North America: the upper Ordovician fauna of the Pyle Mountain Argillite and its palaeoenvironmental significance2
Each of the 115 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. 37 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 Pseudosphaerexochus
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itSphaerexochinae through timeFormations of the OrdovicianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Schmidt 1881)