Dentalium cooperi

via iDigBio · via iDigBio. 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
- DentaliumPBDB
- Diet
- deposit feederPBDB, for Dentaliida
- Life habit
- semi-infaunalPBDB, for Dentaliida
- Motility
- slow-movingPBDB, for Dentaliida
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Scaphopoda
Time the record covers
At least 24 million years on record.
The record covers at least 72.2 Mya to 48.07 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 83.6 Mya to 33.9 Mya.
49 occurrences of Dentalium cooperi on record, most of them in the Paleocene. 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
49 occurrences- Late Cretaceous4%
- Paleocene76%
- Eocene20%
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
9 formations
- Santa Susana Formation20
- Martinez Formation12
- Meganos Formation5
- Tepetate Formation2
- Tejon Formation2
- Lodo Formation1
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The named rock units Dentalium cooperi has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Dentalium cooperi and its relatives
PaleoceneWhere Dentalium cooperi and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.
Found in the same rock
407 taxa- Cucullaea mathewsonii30 sites
- Turritella infragranulata pachecoensis28 sites
- Nemocardium (Nemocardium) linteum22 sites
- Amauropsis martinezensis17 sites
- Nuculana (Saccella) gabbii17 sites
- Polinices hornii17 sites
- Mesalia martinezensis15 sites
- Pseudoperissolax tricarnatus14 sites
- Scaphander (Mirascapha) costatus14 sites
- Crassatella13 sites
- Flabellum cuneiforme13 sites
- Tellina (Saulella) undulifera13 sites
- Brachysphingus sinuatus11 sites
- Glycymerita major10 sites
- Pholadomya (Pholadomya) nasuta10 sites
- Retipirula crassitesta10 sites
- Ringicula (Ringicula) pinguis9 sites
- Urosyca caudata9 sites
- Lacunaria striata8 sites
- Palaeopsammia zitteli8 sites
- Polinices (Euspira) nuciformis8 sites
- Sycum mucronatum8 sites
- Tellina (Angulus) simiensis8 sites
- Acila (Truncacila) decisa7 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 49 sites for Dentalium cooperi, 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
13 references- A contribution to the paleontology of the Martinez Eocene of California17
- Fauna of the Martinez Eocene of California12
- The geology and paleontology of the type section of the Meganos Formation (lower Middle Eocene) of California5
- Geology and oil resources of a part of Los Angeles and Ventura counties, California3
- An unusual Late Cretaceous fauna from an oyster-rich interval in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California2
- Reconnaissance of the geology and oil possibilities of Baja California, Mexico2
- Fauna and stratigraphic relations of the Tejon Eocene at the type locality in Kern County, California2
- A new species of Fulgoraria (Mollusca: Gastropoda) from the Paleocene of southern California1
- Age, Correlation and Possible Tethyan Affinities of Mollusks from the Lodo Formation of Fresno County, California1
- Geology of San Nicolas Island, California1
- Geology of the coast ranges immediately north of the San Francisco Bay region, California1
- Stratigraphic and faunal relations of the Martinez to the Chico and Tejon of Southern California1
Each of the 49 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. 1 further reference is 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 Dentalium cooperi
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Dentalium cooperi 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itDentalium through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gabb 1864