Pterotyphis (Prototyphis)

Not Pterotyphis (Prototyphis). This is Prototyphis angasi (Crosse, 1863), a relative — both are Muricidae.
Adrian Gale · CC BY-NC 4.0 · via GBIF. 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
- PterotyphisPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Muricidae
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Muricidae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Muricidae
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At least 32 million years on record.
The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 1.63 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 37.71 Mya to 340 ka.
4 occurrences of Pterotyphis (Prototyphis) on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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- Eocene25%
- Miocene25%
- Pleistocene50%
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
3 formations
- Tainui Shell Bed Formation2
- Waihao Greensand Formation1
- Rifle Butts Formation · Kaierero Group1
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Pterotyphis (Prototyphis) has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Pterotyphis (Prototyphis) and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Pterotyphis (Prototyphis) and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
95 taxa- Aequispirella1 site
- Alvania1 site
- Amalda (Gracilispira)1 site
- Anatoma1 site
- Ancilla (Ancillus)1 site
- Anomia1 site
- Attenuata1 site
- Austrofusus (Austrofusus)1 site
- Bastropia1 site
- Bathyarca1 site
- Benthastelena1 site
- Borsonia1 site
- Caestocorbula1 site
- Chlamys1 site
- Cochlespira1 site
- Colubraria1 site
- Coluzea1 site
- Comitas1 site
- Comitileda brachyryncha1 site
- Condylocuna1 site
- Conilithes1 site
- Conus1 site
- Cordieria1 site
- Cucullaea (Latiarca)1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Pterotyphis (Prototyphis), 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
4 references- Marine Mollusca of oxygen isotope stages of the last 2 million years in New Zealand. Part 1: Revised generic positions and recognition of warm-water and cool-water migrants1
- Eocene Mollusca from the vicinity of McCulloch's Bridge, Waihao River, South Canterbury, New Zealand: Paleoecology and systematics1
- The Geology of the Waitaki Subdivision1
- New shells from New Zealand Tertiary beds. Pt 31
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. 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 Prototyphis angasi (Crosse, 1863)
- Source
- GBIF
- Credit
- Adrian Gale
- Licence
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence does not allow it
No 3D scan of Pterotyphis (Prototyphis) 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.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itPterotyphis through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Ponder 1972)