Mitrella ocellata
Mitrella ocellata, the white-spotted dove shell, is a species of sea snail in the family Columbellidae.

William Swainson · 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- Sits inside
- MitrellaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Columbellidae
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Columbellidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Columbellidae
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At least 3.4 million years on record.
The record covers at least 3.6 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka.
4 occurrences of Mitrella ocellata on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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
4 occurrences- Pliocene25%
- Pleistocene75%
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
2 formations
- Belmont Formation2
- Mare Formation · Cabo Blanco Group1
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The named rock units Mitrella ocellata has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Mitrella ocellata and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Mitrella ocellata and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
170 taxa- Alvania2 sites
- Atilia2 sites
- Cerithiopsis2 sites
- Tricolia2 sites
- Acanthina1 site
- Acar1 site
- Acmaea1 site
- Acteon1 site
- Agathotoma1 site
- Agriopoma1 site
- Alaba1 site
- Alaba supralirata1 site
- Alabina1 site
- Alvania veleronis1 site
- Amusium1 site
- Ancilla (Eburna) venezuelana1 site
- Anomia1 site
- Architectonica nobilis1 site
- Arcinella1 site
- Arcopsis solida1 site
- Argopecten gibbus1 site
- Aspella1 site
- Astropsammia pedersenii1 site
- Barbatia (Acar) gradata1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Mitrella ocellata, 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
3 references- The marine Pleistocene mollusks of Bermuda2
- Late Cenozoic gastropods from northern Venezuela1
- Marine Pleistocene mollusks from the Galapagos Islands1
Each of the 4 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. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Mitrella ocellata
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- William Swainson
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
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 itMitrella through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gmelin 1791)