Rangeomorpha

The rangeomorphs are a group of Ediacaran fossils. Ediacarans are the oldest large fossil organisms on earth, and many are not self-evidently related to anything else that has ever lived. However, some Ediacarans clearly resemble each other. Paleontologists have not been able to agree on what else, if anything, is related to these organisms, so Ediacarans are usually classified into groups based on their appearance. These "form taxa" allow scientists to study and discuss Ediacarans when they cannot know what kind of living things they were, or how they were genetically related to each other. Rangeomorphs look roughly like fern fronds or feathers arranged around a central axis; the group is defined as Ediacarans with a similar appearance and structure to the genus Rangea. Some researchers, such as Pflug and Narbonne, believe all rangeomorphs were more closely related to each other than to anything else. If true, this would make the group a natural taxon called Rangeomorpha.

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

Smith609 at English Wikipedia · CC BY 2.5 · 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
EumetazoaPBDB

Time the record covers

At most 97 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 635 Mya and 538.8 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Cambrian — about 0 of 246 occurrences637–634 Mya — about 4 occurrences634–630 Mya — about 8 occurrences630–627 Mya — about 8 occurrences627–624 Mya — about 8 occurrences624–620 Mya — about 8 occurrences620–617 Mya — about 8 occurrences617–614 Mya — about 8 occurrences614–610 Mya — about 8 occurrences610–607 Mya — about 8 occurrences607–604 Mya — about 8 occurrences604–600 Mya — about 8 occurrences600–597 Mya — about 8 occurrences597–594 Mya — about 8 occurrences594–590 Mya — about 8 occurrences590–587 Mya — about 8 occurrences587–584 Mya — about 8 occurrences584–580 Mya — about 8 occurrences580–577 Mya — about 8 occurrences577–574 Mya — about 8 occurrences574–570 Mya — about 8 occurrences570–567 Mya — about 9 occurrences567–564 Mya — about 9 occurrences564–560 Mya — about 9 occurrences560–557 Mya — about 9 occurrences557–554 Mya — about 9 occurrences554–550 Mya — about 9 occurrences550–547 Mya — about 9 occurrences547–544 Mya — about 9 occurrences544–540 Mya — about 9 occurrences540–537 Mya — about 4 occurrences637 Mya537 Mya

246 occurrences of Rangeomorpha on record. 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

246 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

28 formations

Mistaken Point — 48.53°N, 52.90°WMistaken Point — 47.60°N, 53.27°WMistaken Point — 46.62°N, 53.17°WMistaken Point — 47.63°N, 53.22°WMistaken Point — 46.62°N, 53.58°WFermeuse — 48.48°N, 53.10°WFermeuse — 48.53°N, 52.90°WFermeuse — 47.65°N, 53.22°WTrepassey — 48.53°N, 52.90°WTrepassey — 46.63°N, 53.12°WTrepassey — 47.63°N, 53.20°WTrepassey — 46.63°N, 53.16°WTrepassey — 48.53°N, 53.05°WBradgate — 52.67°N, 1.28°WBradgate — 52.77°N, 1.20°WBradgate — 52.73°N, 1.23°WBriscal — 46.62°N, 53.18°WDengying — 30.81°N, 111.15°EDengying — 30.79°N, 111.05°EDrook — 47.05°N, 52.90°WDrook — 46.69°N, 53.26°WDrook — 46.78°N, 60.89°WRawnsley Quartzite — 30.97°S, 138.18°ERawnsley Quartzite — 30.85°S, 138.13°EDabis — 22.58°S, 17.08°EDabis — 26.30°S, 17.03°EDabis — 26.48°S, 16.71°EDabis — 26.65°S, 16.27°ENadaleen — 63.39°N, 128.48°WKhatyspyt — 71.13°N, 123.82°EZimnie Gory — 65.55°N, 39.77°EVerkhovka — 64.70°N, 39.03°EVerkhovka — 64.43°N, 39.56°EStappogiedde — 70.90°N, 28.67°EStappogiedde — 70.58°N, 28.18°EYorga — 65.70°N, 40.19°EYorga — 65.55°N, 39.77°EUrusis — 27.48°S, 16.70°EUrusis — 27.45°S, 16.56°EZhoujieshan — 37.43°N, 95.80°EChernyi Kamen — 58.95°N, 57.96°EIves Head — 52.74°N, 1.14°WKuibis Quartzite — 26.65°S, 15.13°ETrepassey and Fermeuse — 47.55°N, 52.67°WNudaus — 22.58°S, 17.08°ESheepbed — 64.67°N, 132.00°WUst-Pinega — 65.49°N, 39.89°E

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The named rock units Rangeomorpha has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed.

Found in the same rock

194 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 97 sites for Rangeomorpha, 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

55 references

Each of the 246 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. 43 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 Rangeomorpha

Credit
Smith609 at English Wikipedia
Licence
CC BY 2.5
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Rangeomorpha was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itEumetazoa through time

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.