Lobatus gigas

Aliger gigas, originally known as Strombus gigas or more recently as Lobatus gigas, commonly known as the queen conch, is a species of large sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family of true conches, the Strombidae. This species is one of the largest molluscs native to the Caribbean Sea, and tropical northwestern Atlantic, reaching up to 35.2 centimetres (13.9 in) in shell length. A. gigas is closely related to the goliath conch, Titanostrombus goliath, a species endemic to Brazil, as well as the rooster conch, Aliger gallus.

Lobatus gigas

Jennifer Doerr, NOAA SEFSC Galveston · 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
LobatusPBDB
Diet
omnivore, grazerPBDB, for Strombidae
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Strombidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Strombidae
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda

Time the record covers

At least 15 million years on record.

The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.

Oligocene — about 0 of 27 occurrencesMiocene — about 2 of 27 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 27 occurrencesPleistocene — about 22 of 27 occurrencesPleistocene24–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.1–2.4 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences2.4–1.6 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.6–785 ka Mya — about 2 occurrences785 ka–0 Mya — about 19 occurrences15.98 Mya11.7 ka23.5 Mya0 Mya

27 occurrences of Lobatus gigas 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

27 occurrences

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

7 formations

Grotto Beach — 24.03°N, 74.52°WPirabas — 0.80°S, 47.13°WPirabas — 0.48°S, 48.17°WFort Thompson — 26.79°N, 81.30°WFort Thompson — 26.76°N, 81.44°WFalmouth — 18.47°N, 77.45°WAmbergris Cay Limestone — 18.12°N, 87.82°WAmbergris Cay Limestone — 18.00°N, 87.90°WPort Morant — 17.87°N, 76.32°WIronshore — 19.65°N, 80.10°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Lobatus gigas has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 14 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Lobatus gigas and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Lobatus gigas and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

450 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 10 sites for Lobatus gigas, 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

18 references

Each of the 27 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. 6 further references are 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 Lobatus gigas

Credit
Jennifer Doerr, NOAA SEFSC Galveston
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.

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 itLobatus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1758)