Calyptraphorus
Searched as Calyptraphorus velatus compressus. The Paleobiology Database treats Calyptraphorus as the accepted name.
Calyptraphorus, also known by its alternative spelling Calyptrophoris, is an extinct genus of sorbeochonid gastropod that belongs to the family Rostellariidae. It had a global distribution occurring from the Cretaceous period to the mid-Pliocene epoch. Members of this genus were likely epifaunal grazers.

MNHN - Museum national d'Histoire naturelle - Pierre Massicard · 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
- RostellariidaePBDB
- Diet
- grazerPBDB, for Stromboidea
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Stromboidea
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Stromboidea
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At most 3.3 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 59.24 Mya and 56 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Calyptraphorus 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
1 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
1 formation
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Calyptraphorus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Calyptraphorus and its relatives
PaleoceneWhere Calyptraphorus and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.
Found in the same rock
1,799 taxa- Turritella103 sites
- Pitar64 sites
- Pseudoliva vetusta62 sites
- Calyptraea (Trochita) aperta58 sites
- Cadulus56 sites
- Venericardia53 sites
- Dentalium48 sites
- Athleta petrosa45 sites
- Athleta42 sites
- Natica42 sites
- Tellina42 sites
- Ancilla staminea41 sites
- Ostrea41 sites
- Bullata semen39 sites
- Levifusus39 sites
- Sinum39 sites
- Architectonica38 sites
- Eburneopecten scintillatus38 sites
- Hipponix38 sites
- Ficus37 sites
- Glycymeris idonea36 sites
- Polinices36 sites
- Gastropoda33 sites
- Gemmula (Coronia)33 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 190 sites for Calyptraphorus, 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
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Calyptraphorus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- MNHN - Museum national d'Histoire naturelle - Pierre Massicard
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Calyptraphorus 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 itRostellariidae through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Conrad 1857