Epitonium
Searched as Epitonium condoni oregonensis. The Paleobiology Database treats Epitonium as the accepted name.
Epitonium is a genus of small predatory sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks. Epitonium is the type genus of the family Epitoniidae, the wentletraps.

Steve Jurvetson · 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
- EpitoniidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Epitoniidae
- Life habit
- semi-infaunalPBDB
- Motility
- slow-movingPBDB, for Epitoniidae
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At most 3.9 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 37.71 Mya and 33.9 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Epitonium 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
1 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
1 formation
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Epitonium has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Epitonium and its relatives
EoceneWhere Epitonium and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
3,388 taxa- Turritella45 sites
- Nassarius31 sites
- Naticidae31 sites
- Babylonella29 sites
- Limopsis28 sites
- Dentalina konincki26 sites
- Elphidium26 sites
- Odostomia26 sites
- Spiroplectammina carinata26 sites
- Varicorbula gibba26 sites
- Lentigodentalium25 sites
- Limopsis (Limopsis) aurita25 sites
- Aporrhais (Aporrhais)24 sites
- Cibicides lobatulus24 sites
- Globulina gibba24 sites
- Lyrotyphis24 sites
- Reussirella24 sites
- Streptodictyon24 sites
- Textularia gramen24 sites
- Venus (Ventricoloidea) multilamella24 sites
- Astarte (Astarte) radiata23 sites
- Cibicides dutemplei23 sites
- Dentalium (Pseudantilis)23 sites
- Lunulites23 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 399 sites for Epitonium, 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
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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content2
Picture of Epitonium
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Steve Jurvetson
- Licence
- CC BY 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- Biodiversity
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Epitonium”
- 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 itEpitoniidae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Bolten 1798