Mesorhytis

via iDigBio · CC0 · 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
- MitridaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Mitridae
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Mitridae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Mitridae
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At least 33 million years on record.
The record covers at least 89.8 Mya to 56 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 93.9 Mya to 48.07 Mya.
16 occurrences of Mesorhytis on record, most of them in the Paleocene. 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
16 occurrences- Late Cretaceous25%
- Paleocene50%
- Eocene25%
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
8 formations
- Aquia Formation · Pamunkey Group5
- Hatchetigbee Bluff Formation · Wilcox Group3
- Kincaid Formation · Midway Group2
- Porters Creek Formation · Midway Group1
- Nanjemoy Formation · Pamunkey Group1
- Cotinguiba Formation1
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The named rock units Mesorhytis 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.
Mesorhytis and its relatives
PaleoceneWhere Mesorhytis and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.
Found in the same rock
273 taxa- Athleta (Volutocorbis)2 sites
- Colubraria2 sites
- Eoancilla2 sites
- Gemmula (Coronia)2 sites
- Latirus2 sites
- Levifusus2 sites
- Nassarius (Tritiaria)2 sites
- Orthosurcula2 sites
- Polinices2 sites
- Actaeon blanckenhorni1 site
- Acteonella1 site
- Acutostrea incurva1 site
- Agaronia1 site
- Agerostrea ungulatus1 site
- Amapondella amapondense1 site
- Amauropsis amoena1 site
- Ampullina1 site
- Ampullina (Pseudamaura)1 site
- Ampullospira bulbiformis1 site
- Anomia1 site
- Aporrhais rapax1 site
- Arca (Arca) hatchetigbeensis1 site
- Arca cardioides1 site
- Arca leopoliensis1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Mesorhytis, 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
7 references- Catalogue of the Paleocene and Eocene mollusca of the southern and eastern United States. Part 1. Pelecypoda, Amphineura, Pteropoda, Scaphopoda and Cephalopoda9
- Resilience of marine invertebrate communities during the early Cenozoic hyperthermals2
- Gastropods from the Upper Cretaceous geological site at Tercis les Bains (SW France)1
- The Cenomanian-Coniacian of Sergipe Basin, Brazil1
- Gastropoden aus der Sandkalkbank (Hochmoosschichten, Obersanton) des Beckens von Gosau (OÖ.)1
- Stratigraphic Distribution of Paleocene and Eocene Fossils in the Eastern Gulf Coast Region1
- Die Kreidebildungen des Fürbergs und Sulzbergs bei Siegsdorf in Oberbayern1
Each of the 16 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 Mesorhytis
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Mesorhytis was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itMitridae through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.