Dicathais
Dicathais is a genus of predatory sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Muricidae, the rock snails. This genus is monotypic; the only species in it is Dicathais orbita, common name the white rock shell or cart-rut shell, found round the coasts of Australia and New Zealand.
GrahamBould · 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- Sits inside
- RapaninaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Muricidae
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Muricidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Muricidae
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At least 11 million years on record.
The record covers at least 11.63 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 15.98 Mya to 0 Mya.
5 occurrences of Dicathais on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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
5 occurrences- Miocene40%
- Pleistocene40%
- Holocene20%
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
- Tamala Limestone Formation1
- Bayshore Formation · Hawthorn Group1
- Tims Thicket/Kooallup Limestone Formation1
- Muddy Creek Formation1
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The named rock units Dicathais has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Dicathais and its relatives
MioceneWhere Dicathais and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
207 taxa- Acteocina2 sites
- Bedeva paivae2 sites
- Cantharidus2 sites
- Clanculus2 sites
- Donax2 sites
- Eucrassatella2 sites
- Gomphina undulosa2 sites
- Leiopyrga2 sites
- Mactra2 sites
- Oliva (Strephona) australis2 sites
- Phasianella2 sites
- Polinices conicus2 sites
- Scutellastra2 sites
- Wallucina2 sites
- Acanthopleura1 site
- Alocospira1 site
- Amaea1 site
- Amalda1 site
- Amblychilepas nigrita1 site
- Amblychilepas oblonga1 site
- Amorena1 site
- Anachis (Zafra)1 site
- Angulus1 site
- Anodontia1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Dicathais, 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- Petuch and Roberts, 20071
- New Pleistocene and Holocene stratigraphic units in the Yalgorup Plain area, southern Swan Costal Plain1
- Mandu Mandu Creek Rockshelter: Pleistocene Human Coastal Occupation of North West Cape, Western Australia1
- Catalogue of Australian Tertiary Mollusca (except chitons)1
- The fossil Mollusca of the Peppermint Grove Limestone, Swan River district or Western Australia1
Each of the 5 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 Dicathais
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- GrahamBould
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Dicathais 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Dicathais”
- 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 itRapaninae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Iredale 1936