Salteropterus

Salteropterus is a genus of eurypterid, an extinct group of aquatic arthropods. Fossils of Salteropterus have been discovered in deposits of Late Silurian age in Britain. Classified as part of the family Slimonidae, the genus contains one known valid species, S. abbreviatus, which is known from fossils discovered in Herefordshire, England, and a dubious species, S. longilabium, with fossils discovered in Leintwardine, also in Herefordshire. The generic name honours John William Salter, who originally described S. abbreviatus as a species of Eurypterus in 1859.

Salteropterus

Ichthyovenator · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikidata/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
SlimoniidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Eurypterida
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB, for Eurypterida
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Eurypterida
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Eurypterida

Time the record covers

At most 5.4 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 425 Mya and 419.62 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Silurian — about 2 of 2 occurrencesSilurianDevonian — about 0 of 2 occurrences425–425 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences425–425 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences425–424 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences424–424 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences424–424 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences424–424 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences424–424 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences424–423 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences423–423 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences423–423 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences423–423 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences423–423 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences423–422 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences422–422 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences422–422 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences422–422 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences422–421 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences421–421 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences421–421 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences421–421 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences421–421 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences421–420 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences420–420 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences420–420 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences420–420 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences420–420 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences425.5 Mya419.1 Mya

2 occurrences of Salteropterus on record, most of them in the Silurian. 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 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

Leintwardine — 52.38°N, 2.85°WTemeside Shale — 52.37°N, 2.73°W

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

Salteropterus and its relatives

Silurian

Where Salteropterus and its relatives were recorded in the Silurian.

Found in the same rock

47 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Salteropterus, 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

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 Salteropterus

Credit
Ichthyovenator
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Salteropterus 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 itSlimoniidae through timeFormations of the SilurianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Kjellesvig-Waering 1951