Rotadiscus
Rotadiscus is a genus of discoidal animal known from the Cambrian Chengjiang biota and classified with the eldonioids.

Lukas Large · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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
- RotadiscidaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB
- Life habit
- nektonicPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB
Time the record covers
At least 468 million years on record.
The record covers at least 516 Mya to 48 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 521 Mya to 42 Mya.
2 occurrences of Rotadiscus 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
2 occurrencesThese 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
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The named rock units Rotadiscus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Rotadiscus and its relatives
CambrianWhere Rotadiscus and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.
Found in the same rock
37 taxa- Branchiocaris yunnanensis1 site
- Bulimus lutescens1 site
- Colhueconus simpsoni1 site
- Eoglossa chengjiangensis1 site
- Eoredlichia intermediata1 site
- Facivermis yunnanicus1 site
- Fuxianhuia protensa1 site
- Gyrocochlea1 site
- Heliomedusa orienta1 site
- Isoxys auritus1 site
- Isoxys paradoxus1 site
- Jianfengia multisegmentalis1 site
- Kuamaia lata1 site
- Kunmingella1 site
- Kunyangella1 site
- Leptomitella confusa1 site
- Leptomitella conica1 site
- Lilloiconcha1 site
- Lingulellotreta yuanshanensis1 site
- Maotianshania cylindrica1 site
- Microdictyon sinicum1 site
- Micromitra1 site
- Misszhouia longicaudata1 site
- Naraoia spinosa1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Rotadiscus, 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
2 references- Middle Eocene - Oligocene gastropods of the Sarmiento Formation, central Patagonia1
- Lower Cambrian pediculate lingulids from Yunnan, China1
Each of the 2 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Rotadiscus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Lukas Large
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Rotadiscus”
- 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 itRotadiscidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Sun and Hou 1987