Murex

Murex is a genus of medium to large sized predatory tropical sea snails. They are carnivorous marine gastropod molluscs in the family Muricidae, commonly called "murexes" or "rock snails".

Murex

Samuel Chow from Boston, USA · 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
MuricinaePBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Muricidae
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Muricidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Muricidae
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda

Time the record covers

At least 119 million years on record.

The record covers at least 119.57 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 121.4 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 7 of 305 occurrencesEarly CretaceousLate Cretaceous — about 1 of 305 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 10 of 305 occurrencesEocene — about 78 of 305 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 16 of 305 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 95 of 305 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 40 of 305 occurrencesPleistocene — about 57 of 305 occurrences124–120 Mya — about 2 occurrences120–116 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences116–111 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences111–107 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences107–103 Mya — about 2 occurrences103–99 Mya — about 2 occurrences99–95 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences95–91 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences66–62 Mya — about 2 occurrences62–58 Mya — about 7 occurrences58–54 Mya — about 2 occurrences54–50 Mya — about 2 occurrences50–45 Mya — about 12 occurrences45–41 Mya — about 17 occurrences41–37 Mya — about 42 occurrences37–33 Mya — about 4 occurrences33–29 Mya — about 5 occurrences29–25 Mya — about 6 occurrences25–21 Mya — about 13 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 39 occurrences17–12 Mya — about 30 occurrences12–8.3 Mya — about 11 occurrences8.3–4.1 Mya — about 18 occurrences4.1–0 Mya — about 84 occurrences119.57 Mya11.7 ka124 Mya0 Mya

305 occurrences of Murex on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

305 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

82 formations

Chipola — 30.44°N, 85.19°WChipola — 30.46°N, 85.16°WChipola — 30.26°N, 85.17°WCook Mountain — 32.32°N, 89.03°WCook Mountain — 32.32°N, 89.16°WCook Mountain — 30.62°N, 96.53°WCook Mountain — 31.09°N, 95.95°WCook Mountain — 31.22°N, 95.72°WCook Mountain — 31.25°N, 95.72°WCook Mountain — 30.62°N, 96.56°WTogopi — 5.50°N, 117.00°EWeches — 30.00°N, 97.15°WWeches — 31.21°N, 96.02°WWeches — 31.53°N, 94.41°WWeches — 31.11°N, 96.28°WWeches — 31.00°N, 96.83°WWeches — 31.25°N, 96.12°WWeches — 31.22°N, 96.06°WCowlitz — 46.40°N, 122.96°WCowlitz — 46.40°N, 122.93°WArcadia — 27.89°N, 82.48°WArcadia — 27.96°N, 82.37°WArcadia — 28.15°N, 82.76°WArcadia — 29.25°N, 82.17°WArcadia — 30.21°N, 84.30°WToukoshan — 24.47°N, 120.72°ELisbon — 31.76°N, 88.10°WLisbon — 31.84°N, 88.25°WLisbon — 31.50°N, 87.80°WQuilon Limestone — 8.87°N, 76.59°ETermofourà — 45.05°N, 7.80°ETermofourà — 45.04°N, 7.77°ELellinge Greensand — 55.71°N, 12.60°ETuatua Limestone — 17.47°S, 177.05°EUpper Bhuban — 22.88°N, 92.73°EUpper Bhuban — 23.00°N, 93.00°ECoralline Crag — 52.07°N, 1.47°ECoralline Crag — 52.75°N, 1.53°EGosport Sand — 31.54°N, 87.52°WPerte du Rhône — 46.83°N, 6.52°ENagura Gravel — 24.43°N, 124.23°EShoal River — 30.72°N, 86.12°WShoal River — 30.69°N, 86.65°WPirabas — 0.80°S, 47.13°WPirabas — 0.48°S, 48.17°WMuddy Creek — 37.73°S, 142.02°ERed Crag — 52.75°N, 1.53°ERed Crag — 51.85°N, 1.28°ERed Crag — 51.97°N, 1.35°EKorytnica Clays — 50.67°N, 20.52°ELincoln Creek — 46.41°N, 122.93°WBlackdown Greensand — 52.63°N, 1.13°WBlackdown Greensand — 50.87°N, 3.29°W

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The named rock units Murex has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 58 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 87 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Murex and its relatives

Miocene

Where Murex and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

3,516 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 158 sites for Murex, and this reads all 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

105 references

Each of the 305 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. 93 further references are 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 content2

Picture of Murex

Credit
Samuel Chow from Boston, USA
Licence
CC BY 2.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
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

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 itMuricinae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758