Cypraeidae

Cypraeidae, commonly named the cowries, is a taxonomic family of small to large sea snails. These are marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Cypraeoidea, the cowries and cowry allies.

Cypraeidae

Juuyoh TANAKA · 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
Also called
cowryPBDB
Sits inside
CypraeoideaPBDB
Diet
omnivore, grazerPBDB
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB
Motility
actively mobilePBDB
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda

Time the record covers

At least 499 million years on record.

The record covers at least 499.5 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 508.2 Mya to 0 Mya.

Cambrian — about 1 of 1838 occurrencesOrdovician — about 0 of 1838 occurrencesSilurian — about 0 of 1838 occurrencesDevonian — about 0 of 1838 occurrencesCarboniferous — about 0 of 1838 occurrencesPermian — about 0 of 1838 occurrencesEarly Triassic — about 0 of 1838 occurrencesMiddle Triassic — about 0 of 1838 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 0 of 1838 occurrencesEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 1838 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 0 of 1838 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 3 of 1838 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 5 of 1838 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 60 of 1838 occurrencesPaleocene — about 55 of 1838 occurrencesEocene — about 242 of 1838 occurrencesOligocene — about 107 of 1838 occurrencesMiocene — about 668 of 1838 occurrencesPliocene — about 234 of 1838 occurrencesPleistocene — about 440 of 1838 occurrences518–501 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences501–484 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences156–138 Mya — about 3 occurrences138–121 Mya — about 3 occurrences121–104 Mya — about 2 occurrences104–86 Mya — about 13 occurrences86–69 Mya — about 39 occurrences69–52 Mya — about 95 occurrences52–35 Mya — about 202 occurrences35–17 Mya — about 359 occurrences17–0 Mya — about 1121 occurrences499.5 Mya11.7 ka518 Mya0 Mya

1,838 occurrences of Cypraeidae on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

1,838 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

346 formations

Waimanalo — 21.35°N, 158.12°WWaimanalo — 21.70°N, 157.98°WWaimanalo — 21.57°N, 158.27°WWaimanalo — 21.45°N, 157.72°WWaimanalo — 21.28°N, 157.70°WWaimanalo — 21.27°N, 157.75°WWaimanalo — 21.30°N, 157.85°WWaimanalo — 21.35°N, 157.90°WWaimanalo — 21.43°N, 158.18°WWaimanalo — 21.62°N, 158.07°WGurabo — 19.48°N, 71.09°WGurabo — 19.53°N, 71.20°WGurabo — 19.30°N, 70.50°WGurabo — 19.53°N, 71.33°WGurabo — 19.30°N, 71.67°WGurabo — 19.45°N, 70.70°WGurabo — 19.58°N, 71.05°WGurabo — 18.93°N, 71.62°WGurabo — 19.32°N, 70.68°WChipola — 30.44°N, 85.19°WChipola — 30.59°N, 84.58°WChipola — 30.43°N, 84.98°WChipola — 30.47°N, 84.99°WChipola — 30.45°N, 85.17°WChipola — 28.57°N, 80.79°WChipola — 30.26°N, 85.17°WTamiami — 26.72°N, 81.71°WTamiami — 27.34°N, 82.42°WTamiami — 25.90°N, 81.30°WTamiami — 27.33°N, 82.53°WTamiami — 26.14°N, 81.77°WTamiami — 25.67°N, 80.31°WTamiami — 28.23°N, 81.02°WTermofourà — 45.05°N, 7.80°ETermofourà — 45.04°N, 7.77°EFyansford — 38.23°S, 145.02°EFyansford — 38.13°S, 144.28°EFyansford — 38.17°S, 144.34°EFyansford — 38.18°S, 144.50°EFyansford — 38.05°S, 143.99°EJan Juc — 38.32°S, 144.32°EJan Juc — 38.38°S, 144.43°EJan Juc — 35.97°S, 145.00°EGatun — 9.35°N, 79.81°WGatun — 9.35°N, 79.83°WGatun — 9.17°N, 80.00°WGatun — 9.28°N, 79.91°WCastle Hayne — 34.64°N, 77.65°WCastle Hayne — 34.37°N, 77.86°WCastle Hayne — 34.23°N, 77.94°WCastle Hayne — 34.66°N, 77.70°WCercado — 19.53°N, 71.20°WCercado — 19.53°N, 71.27°WCercado — 19.45°N, 71.08°WCercado — 19.30°N, 71.67°WMarnes de Saint-Etienne-d’Orthe — 43.57°N, 1.10°WMarnes de Saint-Etienne-d’Orthe — 43.75°N, 1.10°WCook Mountain — 31.54°N, 87.52°WCook Mountain — 32.17°N, 88.83°WCook Mountain — 31.97°N, 88.71°WCook Mountain — 31.09°N, 95.95°WCook Mountain — 31.20°N, 95.73°WCook Mountain — 30.63°N, 96.55°WCook Mountain — 30.63°N, 96.54°WCook Mountain — 30.07°N, 97.08°WFalun de Saucats — 44.66°N, 0.57°WFalun de Saucats — 43.73°N, 1.03°WCastilletes — 11.93°N, 71.34°WCastilletes — 11.96°N, 71.26°WCastilletes — 11.93°N, 71.36°WCalcaire à Astéries — 43.62°N, 1.05°WCaloosahatchee — 26.89°N, 82.01°WCaloosahatchee — 26.76°N, 81.44°WCaloosahatchee — 26.50°N, 81.20°WCaloosahatchee — 26.75°N, 81.51°WCaloosahatchee — 27.34°N, 82.42°WCaloosahatchee — 27.77°N, 82.68°WCaloosahatchee — 26.52°N, 82.03°WAldabra Limestone — 9.42°S, 46.45°EFalun de St. Paul-les-Dax — 43.75°N, 1.09°WCantaure — 11.90°N, 69.84°WGaj — 23.28°N, 68.97°EGaj — 23.33°N, 68.85°EGaj — 23.25°N, 68.87°EGaj — 23.43°N, 68.95°EGaj — 29.96°N, 69.91°EGaj — 24.87°N, 67.05°EGaj — 25.50°N, 69.00°EJimol — 11.85°N, 71.33°WJimol — 11.97°N, 71.32°WJimol — 11.96°N, 71.43°WJimol — 11.89°N, 71.37°WPirabas — 0.80°S, 47.13°WPirabas — 1.00°S, 48.00°WPirabas — 0.70°S, 47.51°WPirabas — 1.23°S, 47.40°WPirabas — 0.48°S, 48.17°WPirabas — 1.05°S, 47.16°WPirabas — 0.60°S, 47.31°WPirabas — 2.58°S, 43.38°WPirabas — 1.66°S, 45.37°WNdalithoni Limestone — 17.23°S, 178.95°ERoe Calcarenite — 31.97°S, 127.58°ERoe Calcarenite — 31.92°S, 127.44°E

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The named rock units Cypraeidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 322 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 415 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Cypraeidae and its relatives

Miocene

Where Cypraeidae and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

4,631 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 669 sites for Cypraeidae, and this reads 240 of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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

383 references

Each of the 1,838 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. 371 further references are not listed. 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 Cypraeidae

Credit
Juuyoh TANAKA
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Cypraeidae was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itCypraeoidea through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Rafinesque 1815