Elphidium californicum

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
- ElphidiumPBDB
- Diet
- omnivorePBDB, for Elphidium
- Life habit
- semi-infaunalPBDB, for Foraminifera
- Motility
- stationaryPBDB, for Foraminifera
Time the record covers
At least 7.1 million years on record.
The record covers at least 41.03 Mya to 33.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 48.07 Mya to 23.04 Mya.
2 occurrences of Elphidium californicum on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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
2 occurrencesThese 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
2 formations
- Scripps Formation · La Jolla Group1
- Hesquiat Formation · Carmanah Group1
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The named rock units Elphidium californicum has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Elphidium californicum and its relatives
EoceneWhere Elphidium californicum and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
71 taxa- Abdunia sp.1 site
- Acila (Truncacila) decisa1 site
- Acutostrea idriaensis1 site
- Ambloxus olequaensis1 site
- Ariidae1 site
- Astrolepis sp.1 site
- Aturia1 site
- Barbatia1 site
- Bolivina marginata1 site
- Brachidontes (Brachidontes) cowlitzensis1 site
- Callista (Costacallista) soledadensis1 site
- Calwellia1 site
- Calyptraea diegoana1 site
- Cassidulina1 site
- Caucasina1 site
- Ceratobulimina1 site
- Cibicides pseudoungerianus1 site
- Corbicula williamsoni1 site
- Corbula (Caryocorbula) dickersoni1 site
- Crepidula (Spirocrypta) pileum1 site
- Crypholestes1 site
- Dentalina1 site
- Dentalium1 site
- Didelphidae1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Elphidium californicum, 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
2 references- A Middle Eocene marine molluscan assemblage form the usually nonmarine Friars Formation, San Diego County, California1
- Biostratigraphy and depositional environment of the Escalante and Hesquiat Formations (Early Tertiary) of the Nootka Sound area, Vancouver Island, British Columbia1
Each of the 2 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 Elphidium californicum
- 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 Elphidium californicum was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itElphidium through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cook 1959