Conus spurius
Conus spurius, common name the alphabet cone, is a species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Conidae, the cone snails and their allies.
H. Zell · 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
- ConusPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Conidae
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Conidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Conidae
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At least 15 million years on record.
The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 11.7 ka.
30 occurrences of Conus spurius on record, most of them in the Pliocene. 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
30 occurrences- Miocene24%
- Pliocene56%
- Pleistocene20%
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
16 formations
- Gurabo Formation8
- Bermont Formation3
- Bowden Formation · Coastal Group2
- Fort Thompson Formation2
- Tamiami Formation · Okeechobee Group2
- Cercado Formation1
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The named rock units Conus spurius 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.
Conus spurius and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Conus spurius and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
1,021 taxa- Byssoarca zebra4 sites
- Sinistrofulgur4 sites
- Turbinella4 sites
- Astralium3 sites
- Bellucina actinus3 sites
- Cancellaria3 sites
- Chicoreus3 sites
- Chicoreus (Phyllonotus) pomum3 sites
- Laevicardium serratum3 sites
- Melongena3 sites
- Polinices hepaticus3 sites
- Strombus3 sites
- Acar domingensis2 sites
- Acteocina canaliculata2 sites
- Americardia media2 sites
- Amusium2 sites
- Anadara2 sites
- Anodontia alba2 sites
- Antillipecten antillarum2 sites
- Antillophos elegans2 sites
- Arcopsis adamsi2 sites
- Argopecten2 sites
- Bulla striata2 sites
- Busycon2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Conus spurius, 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
15 references- Unpublished census data from Atlantic coastal plain and circum-Caribbean Neogene assemblages and taxonomic opinions7
- Petuch and Roberts, 20075
- The Miocene of Northern Costa Rica3
- Early Pliocene gastropods of Cubagua, Venezuela: Taxonomy, palaeobiogeography and ecostratigraphy2
- Geology and paleontology of canal zone and adjoing parts of Panama: Description of Tertiary mollusks (gastropods: Eulimidae, Marginellidae to Helminthoglyptidae).2
- Santo Domingo type sections and fossils2
- Glowing Seashells: Diversity of Fossilized Coloration Patterns on Coral Reef-Associated Cone Snail (Gastropoda: Conidae) Shells from the Neogene of the Dominican Republic1
- Unpublished notes on Caribbean collection of Jack and Winifred Gibson-Smith, Naturhistorisches Museum Basel1
- Mollusca: Fort Thompson Formation (Late Pleistocene)1
- Southern Caribbean Neogene palaebiogeography revisisted. New data from the Pliocene of Cubagua, Venezuela1
- Petuch, 19881
- The Pliocene Reefs of Miami: Their Geomorphological Significance in the Evolution of the Atlantic Coastal Ridge, Southeastern Florida, U.S.A.1
Each of the 30 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. 3 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 content2
Picture of Conus spurius
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- H. Zell
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC0 Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
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 itConus through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gmelin 1791)