Selkirkia

Selkirkia is a genus of predatory, tubicolous priapulid worms known from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale, Ogygopsis Shale, Puncoviscana Formation, the Early Ordovician Fezouata Formation and the early Devonian La Roche Formation. 142 specimens of Selkirkia are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they comprise 0.27% of the community. In the Burgess Shale, 20% of the tapering, organic-walled tubes are preserved with the worm inside them, whereas the other 80% are empty. Whilst alive, the tubes were probably vertical, whereas trilobite-occupied tubes are horizontal.

Selkirkia

Uncredited · 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
SelkirkiidaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
semi-infaunalPBDB
Motility
facultatively mobilePBDB
Vision
blindPBDB, for Priapulida

Time the record covers

At least 29 million years on record.

The record covers at least 516 Mya to 486.85 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 538.8 Mya to 477.1 Mya.

Cambrian — about 78 of 79 occurrencesCambrianOrdovician — about 1 of 79 occurrencesOrdovician540–538 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences538–536 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences536–534 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences534–531 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences531–529 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences529–527 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences527–525 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences525–523 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences523–521 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences521–519 Mya — about 8 occurrences519–517 Mya — about 8 occurrences517–514 Mya — about 5 occurrences514–512 Mya — about 1 occurrence512–510 Mya — about 1 occurrence510–508 Mya — about 19 occurrences508–506 Mya — about 24 occurrences506–504 Mya — about 6 occurrences504–502 Mya — about 1 occurrence502–499 Mya — about 1 occurrence499–497 Mya — about 2 occurrences497–495 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences489–487 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences487–484 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences484–482 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences482–480 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences480–478 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences478–476 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences516 Mya486.85 Mya540 Mya476 Mya

79 occurrences of Selkirkia 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

79 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

15 formations

Burgess Shale — 51.44°N, 116.47°WBurgess Shale — 51.39°N, 116.43°WYu'anshan — 24.77°N, 102.58°EYuanshan — 24.81°N, 102.58°EYuanshan — 24.84°N, 102.41°ELead Bell Shale — 42.00°N, 112.00°WHongjingshao — 24.83°N, 102.83°EHongjingshao — 25.10°N, 102.80°EKinzers — 40.04°N, 76.31°WKinzers — 40.09°N, 76.35°WLower Wheeler Shale — 40.00°N, 113.00°WLangston — 42.19°N, 112.25°WStephen — 51.17°N, 116.08°WPioche Shale — 37.77°N, 114.56°WShuijingtuo — 30.50°N, 111.16°EMarjum — 39.27°N, 113.31°WWeeks — 39.22°N, 113.40°WFezouata Shale — 30.49°N, 5.80°WPika — 53.20°N, 119.15°W

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

Selkirkia and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Selkirkia and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

699 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 60 sites for Selkirkia, 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

22 references

Each of the 79 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. 10 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 content2

Picture of Selkirkia

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Selkirkia sp. · IRSNB:a:13906

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 itSelkirkiidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Walcott 1911