Pteropoda

Pteropoda are specialized free-swimming pelagic sea snails and sea slugs, marine opisthobranch gastropods. Most live in the top 10 m of the ocean and are less than 1 cm long. The monophyly of Pteropoda is the subject of a lengthy debate; they have even been considered as paraphyletic with respect to cephalopods. Current consensus, guided by molecular studies, leans towards interpreting the group as monophyletic.

Pteropoda

Vidal-Miralles, J., Kohnert, P., Monte, M., Salvador, X., Schrödl, M., & Moles, J. · CC BY 4.0 · 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
EuopisthobranchiaPBDB
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Gastropoda
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Gastropoda
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda

Time the record covers

At least 372 million years on record.

The record covers at least 375.2 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 379 Mya to 774 ka.

Devonian — about 1 of 30 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 0 of 30 occurrencesPermian — about 0 of 30 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 30 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 30 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 30 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 30 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 30 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 30 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 1 of 30 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 0 of 30 occurrencesPaleocene — about 2 of 30 occurrencesEocene — about 14 of 30 occurrencesOligocene — about 1 of 30 occurrencesMiocene — about 7 of 30 occurrencesPliocene — about 1 of 30 occurrencesPleistocene — about 3 of 30 occurrences387–374 Mya — about 1 occurrence142–129 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences129–116 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences64–52 Mya — about 10 occurrences52–39 Mya — about 6 occurrences39–26 Mya — about 1 occurrence26–13 Mya — about 5 occurrences13–0 Mya — about 6 occurrences375.2 Mya2.58 Mya387 Mya0 Mya

30 occurrences of Pteropoda on record, most of them in the Eocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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

30 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

13 formations

London Clay — 51.40°N, 0.83°ELondon Clay — 51.73°N, 0.48°ELondon Clay — 51.51°N, 0.24°ERed Bluff Tuff — 44.00°S, 176.50°WRed Bluff Tuff — 44.30°S, 176.25°EBateque — 26.75°N, 113.00°WBateque — 26.50°N, 112.73°WPebble Point — 38.70°S, 143.18°EShoal River — 30.72°N, 86.12°WShoal River — 30.69°N, 86.65°WPebas — 7.36°S, 74.96°WPebas — 7.25°S, 74.98°WSchistes de Beaulieu — 50.83°N, 1.79°EBowden — 17.88°N, 76.28°WFalun de Saucats — 44.66°N, 0.57°WMargas de Pamplona — 42.89°N, 0.94°WTallahatta — 31.51°N, 87.89°WGhazij — 30.42°N, 70.51°EAgrio — 37.65°S, 70.22°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Pteropoda has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Pteropoda and its relatives

Eocene

Where Pteropoda and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

469 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 19 sites for Pteropoda, 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 30 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 Pteropoda

Credit
Vidal-Miralles, J., Kohnert, P., Monte, M., Salvador, X., Schrödl, M., & Moles, J.
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Pteropoda was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

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 itEuopisthobranchia through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Cuvier 1804