Ceratostoma foliatum
Ceratostoma foliatum, or leafy hornmouth is a species of medium to large sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Muricidae, the rock snails.

Steve Lonhart (SIMoN / MBNMS) · Public Domain · 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- Also called
- foliate thornmouthPBDB
- Sits inside
- CeratostomaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Muricidae
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Muricidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Muricidae
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At least 5.2 million years on record.
The record covers at least 5.333 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 11.63 Mya to 0 Mya.
15 occurrences of Ceratostoma foliatum on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
15 occurrences- Miocene20%
- Pleistocene80%
- Holoceneunder 1%
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
4 formations
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The named rock units Ceratostoma foliatum has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Ceratostoma foliatum and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Ceratostoma foliatum and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
473 taxa- Callianax biplicata11 sites
- Crassadoma gigantea10 sites
- Crepidula adunca10 sites
- Mytilus californianus10 sites
- Atrimitra idae9 sites
- Caesia fossatus9 sites
- Californiconus californicus9 sites
- Callianax pedroana9 sites
- Crepidula nummaria9 sites
- Hima cooperi9 sites
- Lottia scabra9 sites
- Nucella lamellosa9 sites
- Amphissa versicolor8 sites
- Bittium (Stylidium) eschrichtii montereyense8 sites
- Dentalium neohexagonum8 sites
- Glossaulax reclusiana8 sites
- Glycymeris septentrionalis8 sites
- Littorina (Littorina) scutulata8 sites
- Paciocinebrina lurida8 sites
- Petaloconchus complicatus8 sites
- Pododesmus (Monia) macrochisma8 sites
- Acanthinucella spirata7 sites
- Acmaea mitra7 sites
- Chlorostoma funebrale7 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Ceratostoma foliatum, 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
5 references- Late Pleistocene megafauna of Cayucos, California, and its zoogeographic significance8
- Pancho Rico Formation, Salinas Valley3
- Geology of San Nicolas Island, California2
- Paleoecologic molluscan geography of the Californian Pleistocene1
- The Paleontology and Stratigraphy of the Marine Pliocene and Pleistocene of San Pedro, California1
Each of the 15 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 Ceratostoma foliatum
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Steve Lonhart (SIMoN / MBNMS)
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Ceratostoma foliatum was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itCeratostoma through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gmelin 1791)