''Gourdonia'' is a

trilobite Trilobites (; meaning "three lobes") are extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. Trilobites form one of the earliest-known groups of arthropods. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the At ...

in the order

Phacopida Phacopida ("lens-face") is an order of trilobites that lived from the Late Cambrian to the Late Devonian. It is made up of a morphologically diverse assemblage of taxa in three related suborders. Characteristics Phacopida had 8 to 19 thorac ...

(family

Acastidae Acastidae is a family of trilobites in the order Phacopida, suborder Phacopina The Phacopina comprise a suborder of the trilobite order Phacopida. Species belonging to the Phacopina lived from the Lower Ordovician ( Tremadocian) through the end ...

), that existed during the middle

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic era, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the Silurian, million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Carboniferous, Mya. It is named after Devon, England, whe ...

in what is now

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. It was described by Pillet in 1954, and the

type species In zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the species that contains the biological type specimen ...

is ''Gourdonia gourdoni'', which was originally described under the genus ''

Dalmanites ''Dalmanites'' is a genus of trilobite in the order Phacopida. They lived from the Late Ordovician to Middle Devonian. The trilobites of this genus have slightly convex exoskeletons with an average length of . The cephalon is semicircular or pa ...

'' by Barrois in 1883. The generic name is derived from the species epithet. The type locality was the Cathervielle Shale in the

Pyrenees The Pyrenees (; es, Pirineos ; french: Pyrénées ; ca, Pirineu ; eu, Pirinioak ; oc, Pirenèus ; an, Pirineus) is a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. It extends nearly from its union with the Cantabrian Mountains to C ...

mountains.Available Generic Names for Trilobites
P.A. Jell and J.M. Adrain.

References

External links

''Gourdonia''
at the

Paleobiology Database The Paleobiology Database is an online resource for information on the distribution and classification of fossil animals, plants, and microorganisms. History The Paleobiology Database (PBDB) originated in the NCEAS-funded Phanerozoic Marine Pale ...

Acastidae Fossil taxa described in 1954 Devonian trilobites of Europe Fossils of France {{phacopida-stub