Mopalia muscosa

Mopalia muscosa, the mossy chiton, is a species of chiton, a polyplacophoran, an eight-plated marine mollusk. It is a northeastern Pacific species which occurs from British Columbia, Canada, to Baja California Mexico.

Mopalia muscosa

Uncredited · 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
mossy mopaliaPBDB
Sits inside
MopaliaPBDB
Diet
grazerPBDB, for Polyplacophora
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Polyplacophora
Motility
facultatively mobile, attachedPBDB, for Polyplacophora
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Polyplacophora
Environment
marine,brackishPBDB, for Polyplacophora

Time the record covers

At least 117 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 129 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.

Pliocene — about 0 of 31 occurrencesPleistocene — about 30 of 31 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 1 of 31 occurrences2.7–2.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences2.0–1.8 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.8–1.7 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.7–1.6 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.6–1.5 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.5–1.4 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.4–1.3 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.3–1.2 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.2–1.1 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.1–1.0 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences1.0–924 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences924 ka–821 ka Mya — about 0.6 occurrences821 ka–719 ka Mya — about 0.9 occurrences719 ka–616 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence616 ka–513 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence513 ka–411 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence411 ka–308 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence308 ka–205 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence205 ka–103 ka Mya — about 4 occurrences103 ka–0 Mya — about 11 occurrences129 ka – 11.7 ka3.08 Mya0 Mya

31 occurrences of Mopalia muscosa 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

31 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

5 formations

Unnamed — 33.24°N, 119.51°WUnnamed — 33.24°N, 119.55°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.60°N, 117.88°WPalos Verdes Sand — 33.72°N, 118.29°WQuaternary terrace — 33.71°N, 118.29°WSan Pedro Sand — 33.74°N, 118.28°WPalos Verdes — 33.63°N, 117.90°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Mopalia muscosa has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 17 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Mopalia muscosa and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Mopalia muscosa and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

804 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 24 sites for Mopalia muscosa, 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

9 references

Each of the 31 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 Mopalia muscosa

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Mopalia muscosa 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 itMopalia through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gould 1846)