Tsunyidiscus

Tsunyidiscus is a trilobite belonging to the suborder Eodiscina. Tsunyidiscus appeared near the end of the Lower Cambrian, during the late Atdabanian stage of geologic time and some collections suggest it may have survived into the Botomian. The genus is very small, oculate and isopypous with a narrow dome-shaped glabella and a narrow bullet-shaped pygidial axis. Thorax consists of three segments. Tsunyidiscus is the only genus currently attributed to the family Tsunyidiscidae.

Tsunyidiscus

Dwergenpaartje · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
TsunyidiscidaePBDB
Diet
detritivorePBDB, for Agnostida
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Agnostida
Motility
slow-movingPBDB, for Agnostida
Vision
well-developedPBDB, for Tsunyidiscidae

Time the record covers

At most 8.9 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 521 Mya and 512.1 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Cambrian — about 68 of 68 occurrencesCambrian521–521 Mya — about 2 occurrences521–521 Mya — about 4 occurrences521–520 Mya — about 4 occurrences520–520 Mya — about 4 occurrences520–520 Mya — about 4 occurrences520–519 Mya — about 4 occurrences519–519 Mya — about 4 occurrences519–519 Mya — about 4 occurrences519–518 Mya — about 4 occurrences518–518 Mya — about 4 occurrences518–518 Mya — about 4 occurrences518–517 Mya — about 4 occurrences517–517 Mya — about 4 occurrences517–517 Mya — about 4 occurrences517–516 Mya — about 4 occurrences516–516 Mya — about 3 occurrences516–516 Mya — about 2 occurrences516–515 Mya — about 2 occurrences515–515 Mya — about 2 occurrences515–515 Mya — about 2 occurrences515–514 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences514–514 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences514–514 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences514–513 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences513–513 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences513–513 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences513–512 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences512–512 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences521.5 Mya511.6 Mya

68 occurrences of Tsunyidiscus 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

68 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

Niutitang — 27.60°N, 106.71°ENiutitang — 26.67°N, 105.77°ENiutitang — 27.67°N, 106.83°ENiutitang — 27.07°N, 107.50°ENiutitang — 27.55°N, 106.23°ENiutitang — 27.67°N, 106.68°EJiulaodong — 29.50°N, 103.40°EHuanglianba — 27.13°N, 106.82°EShuijingtuo — 30.77°N, 111.32°EShuijingtuo — 32.53°N, 107.92°EShuijingtuo — 34.32°N, 108.70°EShuijingtuo — 29.35°N, 108.35°EYuanshan — 25.40°N, 103.38°EYuanshan — 24.00°N, 102.00°EYuanshan — 24.67°N, 102.65°EYuanshan — 24.72°N, 102.55°EHuangboling — 30.08°N, 117.00°EMingxinsi — 27.07°N, 107.50°EJiumenchong — 28.17°N, 109.17°EJiumenchong — 26.67°N, 108.33°EBianmachong — 26.67°N, 108.33°EBianmachong — 26.40°N, 107.88°EShabakty — 43.60°N, 69.45°EDengying — 33.67°N, 109.46°EMinghsingssu — 27.55°N, 106.23°EWangjiadian — 33.13°N, 111.47°EXidashan — 41.50°N, 90.00°EHotang — 28.73°N, 118.62°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Tsunyidiscus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Tsunyidiscus and its relatives

Cambrian

Where Tsunyidiscus and its relatives were recorded in the Cambrian.

Found in the same rock

93 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 34 sites for Tsunyidiscus, 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

18 references

Each of the 68 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. 6 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 content1

Picture of Tsunyidiscus

Credit
Dwergenpaartje
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Tsunyidiscus 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 itTsunyidiscidae through timeFormations of the CambrianThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Chang 1966