Surcula merriami

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
- TurriculaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Conoidea
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Conoidea
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Conoidea
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At most 10 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 66 Mya and 56 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
9 occurrences of Surcula merriami 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
9 occurrences- Paleocene100%
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
3 formations
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The named rock units Surcula merriami 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.
Surcula merriami and its relatives
PaleoceneWhere Surcula merriami and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.
Found in the same rock
140 taxa- Dentalium cooperi7 sites
- Cucullaea mathewsonii6 sites
- Flabellum cuneiforme6 sites
- Ringicula (Ringicula) pinguis6 sites
- Nemocardium (Nemocardium) linteum5 sites
- Polinices hornii5 sites
- Brachysphingus sinuatus4 sites
- Crassatella unioides4 sites
- Glycymerita major4 sites
- Nuculana (Saccella) gabbii4 sites
- Sycum mucronatum4 sites
- Turricula4 sites
- Turritella infragranulata pachecoensis4 sites
- Urosyca caudata4 sites
- Amauropsis martinezensis3 sites
- Fusinus (Levifusus) calabasasensis3 sites
- Palaeopsammia zitteli3 sites
- Paphia clarki3 sites
- Pholadomya (Pholadomya) nasuta3 sites
- Pseudoperissolax tricarnatus3 sites
- Scaphander (Mirascapha) costatus3 sites
- Surculites mathewsonii3 sites
- Acila (Truncacila) decisa2 sites
- Brachysphingus gibbosus2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Surcula merriami, 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
3 references- Fauna of the Martinez Eocene of California6
- A contribution to the paleontology of the Martinez Eocene of California2
- Age, Correlation and Possible Tethyan Affinities of Mollusks from the Lodo Formation of Fresno County, California1
Each of the 9 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 Surcula merriami
- 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 Surcula merriami 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itTurricula through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Dickerson 1914)