Sidneyia

Sidneyia is an extinct marine arthropod known from fossils found from the Early to the Mid Cambrian of China and the Mid Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia, Canada. It is thought to have been a durophagous (crushing) predator that used its spine-covered leg bases (gnathobases) to feed on hard-bodied animals like trilobites and brachiopods, as well as possibly soft bodied animals. It was historically placed in the group "Xenopoda" alongside Emeraldella. It is now placed within the clade Vicissicaudata along with aglaspidids, chelonellids, as well as Emeraldella, among others. Vicissicaudata forms part of the broader group Artiopoda, which includes trilobites.

Sidneyia

Qohelet12 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
VicissicaudataPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB
Life habit
nektobenthicPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB

Time the record covers

At least 3.2 million years on record.

The record covers at least 509.7 Mya to 506.5 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 515.3 Mya to 497 Mya.

Cambrian — about 33 of 33 occurrencesCambrian516–515 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences515–515 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences515–514 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences514–513 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences513–513 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences513–512 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences512–511 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences511–511 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences511–510 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences510–509 Mya — about 2 occurrences509–509 Mya — about 4 occurrences509–508 Mya — about 4 occurrences508–507 Mya — about 4 occurrences507–507 Mya — about 4 occurrences507–506 Mya — about 4 occurrences506–506 Mya — about 4 occurrences506–505 Mya — about 2 occurrences505–504 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences504–504 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences504–503 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences503–502 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences502–502 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences502–501 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences501–500 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences500–500 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences500–499 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences499–498 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences498–498 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences498–497 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences497–497 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences509.7 Mya506.5 Mya515.8 Mya496.5 Mya

33 occurrences of Sidneyia 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

33 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

7 formations

Burgess Shale — 51.44°N, 116.47°WBurgess Shale — 51.03°N, 115.83°WBurgess Shale — 51.39°N, 116.43°WKinzers — 40.04°N, 76.31°WKinzers — 40.07°N, 76.37°WStephen — 51.17°N, 116.08°WLower Wheeler Shale — 39.00°N, 113.00°WLangston — 41.59°N, 112.04°WMantou — 36.50°N, 118.70°EBalang — 28.42°N, 109.42°E

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

Sidneyia and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Sidneyia and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

312 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 31 sites for Sidneyia, 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

11 references

Each of the 33 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 Sidneyia

Credit
Qohelet12
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
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

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 itVicissicaudata through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

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