Tympanotonos (Diptychochilus)

Not Tympanotonos (Diptychochilus). This is Tympanotonos gradatus (Deshayes, 1833), a relative — both are Potamididae.
Natural History Museum Rotterdam · CC BY 4.0 · via GBIF. 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
- TympanotonosPBDB
- Diet
- grazerPBDB, for Potamididae
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Potamididae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Potamididae
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At least 7 million years on record.
The record covers at least 48.07 Mya to 41.03 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 56 Mya to 37.71 Mya.
5 occurrences of Tympanotonos (Diptychochilus) 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
5 occurrences- Eocene100%
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
2 formations
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Tympanotonos (Diptychochilus) has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 3 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Tympanotonos (Diptychochilus) and its relatives
EoceneWhere Tympanotonos (Diptychochilus) and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
83 taxa- Ampullina2 sites
- Architectonica (Granosolarium)2 sites
- Calyptraea (Trochita) aperta2 sites
- Cerithium (Ptychocerithium)2 sites
- Eotrivia pedicularis2 sites
- Eotympanotonus2 sites
- Hipponix2 sites
- Nystia2 sites
- Pirenella2 sites
- Potamides (Potamidopsis)2 sites
- Potamides (Potamidopsis) tricarinatus2 sites
- Sassia2 sites
- Serpulorbis2 sites
- Amaea (Acrilla) affinis1 site
- Amaurellina1 site
- Ampullaria sigaretina1 site
- Architectonica1 site
- Arcopagia1 site
- Bathytormus tenuistria1 site
- Bembicium1 site
- Bernaya (Bernaya) obesa1 site
- Bittium (Bittium)1 site
- Bourdotia1 site
- Cernina (Eocernina)1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Tympanotonos (Diptychochilus), 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- Les Mesogastropoda Fossiles du Cenozoïque étranger des Collections de L'Institute Royale des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique: Cyclophoridae à Stilifetidae3
- Early Eocene Cerithioidean gastropods of mangrove-fringed coasts (South-central Pyrenees, Spain)1
- First systematic study using the variability of the residual colour patterns: the case of the Paleogene Seraphsidae (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Stromboidea)1
Each of the 5 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 Tympanotonos gradatus (Deshayes, 1833)
- Source
- GBIF
- Credit
- Natural History Museum Rotterdam
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itTympanotonos through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Cossmann in Doncieux 1908)