Pagea
Extinct genus of arthropods
Pagea is a genus of prehistoric eurypterid classified as part of the family Stylonuridae. It contains three species, all from the Devonian (Lochkovian to Pragian); P. plotnicki from Nunavut, Canada and P. sturrocki and P. symondsii from the Old Red Sandstone of the United Kingdom. The genus is named in honor of David Page, an early worker on the fauna of the Old Red Sandstone and describer of the first Stylonurine eurypterid.
01Description
Pagea was a large stylonurid eurypterid. The third and fourth prosomal appendages bore double rows of flat spines. The prosoma was subrectangularly shaped, with the eyes located on the anterior half.
The metastoma was narrow in relation to the width of the prosoma, being half as wide as it was long. The telson was styliform, long and keeled.
02Synonyms
Leiopterella tetliei, a small eurypterid known only from the single specimen CMN 53573 from the Early Devonian of Nunavut, Canada, was synonymized with Pagea by Lamdell (2025). Leiopterella was originally described in 2010 as a rhenopterid, though the features claimed in the original description were later determined to not actually be visible in the fossil. Lamsdell found no distinguishing characteristics between L. tetliei and the co-occurring Pagea plotnicki, and concluded that Leiopterella merely represented a juvenile individual of that species.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Pagea”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Pagea symondsii.png by John William Salter, Public domain
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