Eulithidium comptum
Eulithidium comptum, the Californian banded pheasant shell, is a species of small sea snail with calcareous opercula, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Phasianellidae, the pheasant snails.

G.W. Tryon · Public Domain · 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
- banded pheasantPBDB
- Sits inside
- EulithidiumPBDB
- Diet
- grazerPBDB, for Trochoidea
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Trochoidea
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Trochoidea
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At most 2.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 11.7 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
22 occurrences of Eulithidium comptum on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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
22 occurrences- Pleistocene100%
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
4 formations
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Eulithidium comptum has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Eulithidium comptum and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Eulithidium comptum and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
877 taxa- Caesia perpinguis17 sites
- Californiconus californicus17 sites
- Callianax biplicata17 sites
- Caesia fossatus15 sites
- Calliostoma canaliculatum14 sites
- Leptopecten latiauratus14 sites
- Mitrella tuberosa14 sites
- Dentalium neohexagonum13 sites
- Glossaulax reclusiana13 sites
- Mitrella gausapata13 sites
- Thylacodes squamigerus13 sites
- Acteocina culcitella12 sites
- Anomia peruviana12 sites
- Balcis micans12 sites
- Crepidula nummaria12 sites
- Cryptomya californica12 sites
- Dallocardia quadragenarium12 sites
- Donax (Donax) gouldii12 sites
- Epilucina californica12 sites
- Lacuna (Epheria) unifasciata12 sites
- Lucinisca nuttalli12 sites
- Saccella taphria12 sites
- Turritella cooperi12 sites
- Callianax pedroana11 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 18 sites for Eulithidium comptum, 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
13 references- Geology and Paleontology of Palos Verdes Hills, California4
- Late Pleistocene invertebrates of the Newport Bay area, California3
- The paleontology of the Pleistocene molluscan fauna of the Newport Bay area, California3
- The Paleontology and Stratigraphy of the Marine Pliocene and Pleistocene of San Pedro, California3
- Pleistocene invertebrates from the Dume Terrace, western Santa Monica Mountains, California1
- Paleoecologic molluscan geography of the Californian Pleistocene1
- Pleistocene invertebrates from Punta China, Baja California, Mexico, with remarks on the composition of the Pacific coast Quaternary faunas1
- Upper Pleistocene Mollusca from Potrero Canyon, Pacific Palisades, California1
- Geologic Application of Biometrical Analysis of Molluscan Assemblages1
- The paleontology and stratigraphy of the Pleistocene at Signal hill, Long Beach, California1
- Geology of the eastern part of the Santa Monica Mountains, Los Angeles County, California1
- The fossils of the Lower San Pedro fauna of the Nob Hill cut, San Pedro, California1
Each of the 22 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. 1 further reference is 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 Eulithidium comptum
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- G.W. Tryon
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Eulithidium comptum 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 itEulithidium through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gould 1855)