Mexacanthina lugubris

Mexacanthina lugubris, also called dark unicorn, is a species of small predatory sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Muricidae, the murex snails or rock snails.

Mexacanthina lugubris

Sowerby, 1821 · CC0 · 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
dark unicornPBDB
Sits inside
MexacanthinaPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Muricidae
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Muricidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Muricidae
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda

Time the record covers

At most 2.6 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pliocene — about 0 of 37 occurrencesPleistocene — about 37 of 37 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 0 of 37 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences2.0–1.8 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences1.0–924 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 7 occurrences103 ka–0 Mya — about 24 occurrences3.08 Mya0 Mya

37 occurrences of Mexacanthina lugubris 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

37 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

4 formations

Quaternary terrace — 33.75°N, 118.30°WQuaternary terrace — 33.74°N, 118.41°WQuaternary terrace — 33.71°N, 118.29°WDiscovery Point — 29.00°N, 118.27°WDiscovery Point — 28.99°N, 118.23°WDiscovery Point — 29.10°N, 118.25°WUnnamed — 33.24°N, 119.51°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.60°N, 117.88°W

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The named rock units Mexacanthina lugubris has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 22 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Mexacanthina lugubris and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Mexacanthina lugubris and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

719 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 27 sites for Mexacanthina lugubris, 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

Each of the 37 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 content1

Picture of Mexacanthina lugubris

Credit
Sowerby, 1821
Licence
CC0
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 itMexacanthina through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Sowerby I 1822)