Janthina
Janthina is a genus of small to medium-sized pelagic or planktonic sea snails that belongs to the family Epitoniidae. Species in this genus occur worldwide in tropical, subtropical and warm seas.

Rebecca R. Helm. Image by Denis Riek. · CC BY-SA 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
- JanthinidaePBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Janthinidae
- Life habit
- planktonicPBDB, for Janthinidae
- Motility
- passively mobilePBDB, for Janthinidae
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At least 3.5 million years on record.
The record covers at least 3.7 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka.
9 occurrences of Janthina on record, most of them in the Pliocene. 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
9 occurrences- Pliocene67%
- Pleistocene33%
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
7 formations
- Otahuhu Formation2
- Rhodes Formation2
- Bowden Formation · Coastal Group1
- Falmouth Formation · Coastal Group1
- Tsuma Formation · Miyazaki Group1
- Takanabe Formation · Miyazaki Group1
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The named rock units Janthina has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Janthina and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Janthina and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
714 taxa- Cavolinia3 sites
- Crepidula3 sites
- Tricolia3 sites
- Anomia ephippium2 sites
- Barbatia (Barbatia) barbata2 sites
- Bittium2 sites
- Calliostoma2 sites
- Calliostoma conulus2 sites
- Calliostoma zizyphinum2 sites
- Calyptraea chinensis2 sites
- Cerithium (Thericium) vulgatum2 sites
- Chrysalida2 sites
- Circulus2 sites
- Clio2 sites
- Ctena decussata2 sites
- Diplodonta (Diplodonta) rotundata2 sites
- Ervillia2 sites
- Erycina2 sites
- Flexopecten2 sites
- Gibberula2 sites
- Gibbula2 sites
- Glycymeris pilosa2 sites
- Gouldia (Gouldia) minima2 sites
- Homalopoma2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Janthina, 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- A janthinid gastropod from Late Neogene Miyazaki Group of Southwestern Japan, and a status of Hartungia2
- Cenozoic Mollusca of New Zealand2
- Seagrass-Associated Molluscan and Fish Communities from the Early Pleistocene of the Island of Rhodes (Greece)1
- Spectacular preservation of seagrasses and seagrass-associated communities from the Pliocene of Rhodes, Greece1
- The benthic mollusk faunas of two contrasting reef paleosubenvironments: Falmouth Formation (late Pleistocene, last interglacial), Jamaica1
- Miocene Molluscs from Bowden, Jamaica. Part 2: Gastropods and discussion of results1
- New Fossil Mollusca1
Each of the 9 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 Janthina
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Rebecca R. Helm. Image by Denis Riek.
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Janthina 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Janthina”
- 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 itJanthinidae through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Ršding 1798