Megathura

Ed Bierman · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikidata/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
- DiodoriniPBDB
- Diet
- grazerPBDB, for Fissurellidae
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Fissurellidae
- Motility
- facultatively mobilePBDB, for Fissurellidae
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At least 37 million years on record.
The record covers at least 37.71 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 41.03 Mya to 0 Mya.
17 occurrences of Megathura 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
17 occurrences- Eocene6%
- Pliocene6%
- Pleistocene88%
- Holoceneunder 1%
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
- Palos Verdes Sand Formation4
- Unnamed Formation2
- Palos Verdes Formation2
- Careaga Sandstone Formation1
- Tejon Formation1
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The named rock units Megathura has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 7 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Megathura and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Megathura and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
699 taxa- Californiconus californicus11 sites
- Callianax biplicata10 sites
- Thylacodes squamigerus10 sites
- Cumingia californica9 sites
- Dallocardia quadragenarium9 sites
- Epilucina californica9 sites
- Fissurella volcano9 sites
- Paciocinebrina lurida9 sites
- Amphissa versicolor8 sites
- Caesia perpinguis8 sites
- Crepipatella lingulata8 sites
- Cryptomya californica8 sites
- Dentalium neohexagonum8 sites
- Glans carpenteri8 sites
- Glycymeris septentrionalis8 sites
- Megastraea undosa8 sites
- Petricola (Petricola) carditoides8 sites
- Saxidomus nuttalli8 sites
- Tresus nuttallii8 sites
- Acanthinucella spirata7 sites
- Alia carinata7 sites
- Argopecten ventricosus7 sites
- Caesia fossatus7 sites
- Chlorostoma funebrale7 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 15 sites for Megathura, 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
13 references- Late Pleistocene invertebrates of the Newport Bay area, California3
- Geology of San Nicolas Island, California2
- Geology and paleontology of the Santa Maria District California2
- Patellogastropods (Mollusca) from the Eocene Tejon Formation of southern California1
- A Neogene section northeastern San Clemente 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
- Pleistocene invertebrates from Punta China, Baja California, Mexico, with remarks on the composition of the Pacific coast Quaternary faunas1
- A Pleistocene invertebrate fauna from the southwest corner of San Diego County, California1
- The paleontology of the Pleistocene molluscan fauna of the Newport Bay area, California1
- An unreported exposure of the San Pedro Pleistocene1
- The Paleontology and Stratigraphy of the Marine Pliocene and Pleistocene of San Pedro, California1
Each of the 17 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. 1 further reference is 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 content2

Picture of Megathura
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Ed Bierman
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Megathura crenulata · cas:iz:1019
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 itDiodorini through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Pilsbry 1890