Haliotis rufescens
Haliotis rufescens is a species of very large edible sea snail in the family Haliotidae, the abalone, ormers (British) or pāua. It is distributed from British Columbia, Canada, to Baja California, Mexico. It is most common in the southern half of its range.

Southwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries Service · 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
- red abalonePBDB
- Sits inside
- HaliotisPBDB
- Diet
- grazerPBDB, for Vetigastropoda
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Vetigastropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Vetigastropoda
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At least 2.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 2.58 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 0 Mya.
21 occurrences of Haliotis rufescens 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
21 occurrences- Pliocene5%
- Pleistocene90%
- Holocene5%
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
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Haliotis rufescens has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 11 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Haliotis rufescens and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Haliotis rufescens and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
721 taxa- Epilucina californica17 sites
- Callianax biplicata15 sites
- Glans carpenteri15 sites
- Californiconus californicus14 sites
- Chlorostoma funebrale14 sites
- Diodora aspera14 sites
- Littorina (Littorina) scutulata14 sites
- Lottia scabra14 sites
- Mytilus californianus14 sites
- Thylacodes squamigerus14 sites
- Amphissa versicolor13 sites
- Crassadoma gigantea13 sites
- Crepidula adunca13 sites
- Fissurella volcano13 sites
- Haliotis cracherodii13 sites
- Leukoma staminea13 sites
- Acmaea mitra12 sites
- Chlorostoma brunnea12 sites
- Cumingia californica12 sites
- Homalopoma (Homalopoma) luridum12 sites
- Lottia insessa12 sites
- Mopalia muscosa12 sites
- Alia carinata11 sites
- Atrimitra idae11 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 19 sites for Haliotis rufescens, 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
11 references- Geology of San Nicolas Island, California7
- Pleistocene invertebrates from Punta China, Baja California, Mexico, with remarks on the composition of the Pacific coast Quaternary faunas3
- Late Pleistocene invertebrates of the Newport Bay area, California2
- Late Pleistocene megafauna of Cayucos, California, and its zoogeographic significance2
- Investigations at an eroded shell midden reveal direct evidence for fur seal hunting and diverse subsistence strategies on Late Holocene Santa Rosa (Wima) Island, California1
- Late Pleistocene molluscan faunas from upper terraces of the Palos Verdes Hills, California1
- Habitats and Sources of Pleistocene Mollusks at Torrey Pines Park, California1
- Late Pleistocene faunas from the northwestern coast of Baja California, Mexico1
- Paleontology of the Pleistocene of Point Loma, San Diego County, California1
- Expedition to the Revillagigedo Islands, Mexico, in 1925, VII. Contribution to the geology and paleontology of the Tertiary of Cedros Island and adjacent parts of Lower California1
- An unreported exposure of the San Pedro Pleistocene1
Each of the 21 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 content2
Picture of Haliotis rufescens
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Southwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries Service
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC0 Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
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 itHaliotis through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Swainson 1822