Leptochiton
Leptochiton is a genus of polyplacophoran molluscs.

Magne Flåten · 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
- LeptochitonidaePBDB
- Diet
- grazerPBDB, for Polyplacophora
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Polyplacophora
- Motility
- facultatively mobile, attachedPBDB, for Polyplacophora
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Polyplacophora
- Environment
- marine,brackishPBDB, for Polyplacophora
Time the record covers
At least 49 million years on record.
The record covers at least 52 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 0 Mya.
10 occurrences of Leptochiton 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
10 occurrences- Eocene24%
- Oligocene16%
- Pliocene50%
- Pleistocene10%
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
5 formations
- Sabbie di Altavilla Formation5
- Red Bluff Tuff Formation · Kekerione Group1
- Lincoln Creek Formation1
- Humptulips Formation1
- Chatton Formation1
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The named rock units Leptochiton 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.
Leptochiton and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Leptochiton and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
94 taxa- Acanthochitona cf. ashby1 site
- Acesta1 site
- Amaea1 site
- Anatoma1 site
- Arnoglossus lautus1 site
- Barbatia1 site
- Bathylasma rangatira1 site
- Calliovarica1 site
- Callochiton chattonensis1 site
- Campages1 site
- Carapus alleni1 site
- Caryophyllidae1 site
- Centroberyx worthyi1 site
- Cheilea1 site
- Chiton (Rhyssoplax)1 site
- Chlamys1 site
- Chlamys mercuria1 site
- Colus1 site
- Craspedochiton eernissei1 site
- Cuspidaria1 site
- Cypraeidae1 site
- Dendrophyllia1 site
- Dentex1 site
- Depressigyra1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 4 sites for Leptochiton, 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
6 references- Notes on fossil chitons. 4. Polyplacophora from the Pliocene of Altavilla (NW Sicily)5
- A late Oligocene chiton fauna (Polyplacophora) from a rocky shore ecosystem, Cosy Dell, Southland, New Zealand1
- A middle Eocene seep deposit with silicified fauna from the Humptulips Formation in western Washington State, USA1
- Chitons (Polyplacophora) from Paleogene Strata in Western Washington State, U.S.A.1
- Cretaceous-Cenozoic geology and biostratigraphy of the Chatham Islands, New Zealand1
- Fossil chitons of Western North America1
Each of the 10 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 Leptochiton
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Magne Flåten
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Leptochiton 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.
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 itLeptochitonidae through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1847