Terebralia palustris

Terebralia palustris, commonly known as the giant mangrove whelk, is a species of brackish-water snail, a mollusk in the family Potamididae. This tropical species which inhabits mangrove environments of the Indo-West Pacific region, has the widest geographic distribution amongst the potamidids extending from eastern Africa to northern Australia. Terebralia palustris is the largest mangrove gastropod, with a maximum shell length of 190 mm recorded from Arnhem Land, Australia.

Terebralia palustris

Christoph Kühne · CC BY 2.0 · 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
TerebraliaPBDB
Diet
grazerPBDB, for Potamididae
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Potamididae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Potamididae
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda

Time the record covers

At least 2.5 million years on record.

The record covers at least 2.58 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 3.6 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 1 of 15 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 13 of 15 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 1 of 15 occurrences3.7–3.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.6–3.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.4–3.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.3–3.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.1–3.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.0–2.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.9–2.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.5–2.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.2–2.0 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.0–1.9 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.9–1.8 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.8–1.6 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.4–1.2 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences1.1–957 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences957 ka–820 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences820 ka–683 ka Mya — about 0.3 occurrences683 ka–547 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences547 ka–410 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences410 ka–273 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences273 ka–137 ka Mya — about 0.4 occurrences137 ka–0 Mya — about 9 occurrences2.58 Mya11.7 ka4.1 Mya0 Mya

15 occurrences of Terebralia palustris 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

15 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

3 formations

Batuputih — 9.11°S, 124.89°EEsprit Limestone — 9.42°S, 46.45°EAnanai — 33.43°N, 133.97°E

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The named rock units Terebralia palustris has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 12 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Terebralia palustris and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Terebralia palustris and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

201 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Terebralia palustris, 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

10 references

Each of the 15 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 content2

Picture of Terebralia palustris

Credit
Christoph Kühne
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

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 itTerebralia through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1767)