Scepasma gigas

via iDigBio · CC0 · 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
- ScepasmaPBDB
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Arthropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Insecta
Time the record covers
At most 2.4 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 309.8 Mya and 307.4 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Scepasma gigas on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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- Carboniferous100%
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
- Carbondale Formation · Kewanee Group1
- Luisenthal Formation · Saarbrucken Group1
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Scepasma gigas has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Scepasma gigas and its relatives
CarboniferousWhere Scepasma gigas and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.
Found in the same rock
78 taxa- Adeloblatta sellardsi1 site
- Ametretus laevis1 site
- Amousus mazonus1 site
- Amphicentrum orbiculare1 site
- Anegertus cubitalis1 site
- Anepitedius giraffa1 site
- Anthracoscorpio1 site
- Aphantomartus pustulatus1 site
- Apithanus jocularis1 site
- Architarbus minor1 site
- Architarbus rotundatus1 site
- Arthrolycosa antiqua1 site
- Arthropleura armata1 site
- Asemoblatta mazona1 site
- Asyncritus reticulatus1 site
- Blattoidea1 site
- Blattoidea anceps1 site
- Blattoidea carri1 site
- Blattoidea melanderi1 site
- Blattoidea schuchertiana1 site
- Blattoidea sellardsiana1 site
- Cacurgus spilopterus1 site
- Cheliphlebia mazona1 site
- Coelacanthus exiguus1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Scepasma gigas, 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- Ein neues Riesen-Insekt aus dem Ober-Karbon des Saarlandes (Palaeodictyoptera: Homoiopteridae)1
- New Paleozoic insects from the vicinity of Mazon Creek, Illinois1
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. 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 Scepasma gigas
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Scepasma gigas 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itScepasma through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Handlirsch 1911