Austrotoma
Austrotoma is a genus of sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks, in the family Pseudomelatomidae. It has also been placed in the family Pseudotomidae.

Auckland War Memorial Museum · 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
- PseudomelatomidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Conoidea
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Conoidea
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Conoidea
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At least 25 million years on record.
The record covers at least 41.03 Mya to 15.98 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 48.07 Mya to 11.63 Mya.
40 occurrences of Austrotoma on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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
40 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
9 formations
- La Meseta Formation23
- Naseby Greensand Formation · Stranraer Group3
- Mount Brown Formation2
- Otekaike Limestone Formation · Otiake Group2
- Rifle Butts Formation · Kaierero Group2
- Ihungia Formation2
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The named rock units Austrotoma has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Austrotoma and its relatives
EoceneWhere Austrotoma and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
233 taxa- Polinices (Polinices) subtenuis20 sites
- Saxolucina sharmani16 sites
- Austrobuccinum tuberosum15 sites
- Colposigma euthenia15 sites
- Austroficopsis seymourensis13 sites
- Cucullaea raea13 sites
- Struthioptera camachoi13 sites
- Antarctodarwinella nordenskjoldi12 sites
- Lahillia wilckensi12 sites
- Sudonassarius antarctohimaleos12 sites
- Eucrassatella wilckensi11 sites
- Eurhomalea newtoni10 sites
- Eurhomalea antarctica9 sites
- Nucula (Leionucula) nova9 sites
- Zelandiella verrucosa9 sites
- Austroficopsis wimani8 sites
- Austrosullivania lata8 sites
- Cyclorismina marwicki8 sites
- Scaphander (Kaitoa) duseni8 sites
- Sigapatella disapicula8 sites
- Antarctodarwinella ellioti7 sites
- Australoneilo rossi7 sites
- Penion australocapax7 sites
- Turbonilla (Ptycheulimella) aersispira7 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 30 sites for Austrotoma, 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
7 references- Molluscan Systematics and Biostratigraphy26
- The Geology of the Waitaki Subdivision4
- The Geology of the Geraldine Subdivision3
- The Geology of the Naseby Subdivision, Central Otago3
- Stratigraphy, paleontology, and tectonics of Lower Miocene rocks in the Waipatiki/Mangatuna area, southern Hawke's Bay, New Zealand2
- Mass mortality of fossil decapods within the Monte Leon Formation (early Miocene), southern Argentina: victims of Andean Volcanism?1
- Geology of the Te Aute Subdivision1
Each of the 40 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 Austrotoma
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Auckland War Memorial Museum
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Austrotoma 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Austrotoma”
- 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 itPseudomelatomidae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Finlay 1924)