Portunites alaskensis

via iDigBio · 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
- PortunitesPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Decapoda
- Life habit
- semi-infaunalPBDB, for Portunoidea
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Malacostraca
- Vision
- well-developedPBDB, for Malacostraca
Time the record covers
At least 6.6 million years on record.
The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 27.3 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 41.03 Mya to 15.98 Mya.
3 occurrences of Portunites alaskensis on record. 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
3 occurrencesThese 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
3 formations
- Poul Creek Formation1
- Lincoln Creek Formation1
- Escalante Formation · Carmanah Group1
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The named rock units Portunites alaskensis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Found in the same rock
11 taxa- Bathybembix columbiana1 site
- Bivalvia1 site
- Carinaranina naselensis1 site
- Dentalium1 site
- Gastropoda1 site
- Macroacaena willapensis1 site
- Mactra1 site
- Orbitoplax plafkeri1 site
- Scaphopoda1 site
- Trinacria willipaensis1 site
- Zanthopsis vulgaris1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Portunites alaskensis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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
3 references- Fossil Decapod Crustaceans from the Lower Tertiary of the Prince Willam Sound Region, Gulf of Alaska1
- Tertiary Rocks of the Hesquiat-Nootka Area, West coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia1
- The fossil stalk-eyed Crustacea of the Pacific slope of North America1
Each of the 3 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1

Picture of Portunites alaskensis
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
No 3D scan of Portunites alaskensis 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 itPortunites through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Rathbun 1926