Spondylus princeps

via iDigBio · CC0 · via iDigBio. 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
- SpondylusPBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Spondylus
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Spondylus
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Spondylus
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Spondylidae
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Pectinida
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.
6 occurrences of Spondylus princeps 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
6 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
1 formation
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The named rock units Spondylus princeps has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Spondylus princeps and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Spondylus princeps and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
8 taxa- Argopecten abietis1 site
- Balanus1 site
- Euvola vogdesi1 site
- Meoma1 site
- Nodipecten subnodosus1 site
- Ostrea angelica1 site
- Parona sp.1 site
- Porites1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Spondylus princeps, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too.
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- Pliocene fossils from Rancho El Refugio, Baja California and Cerralvo Island, Mexico3
- Late Pleistocene (Last Interglacial) terrace deposits, Bahia Coyote, Baja California Sur, Mexico1
- Tertiary Marine Pelycypods of California and Baja California: Plicatulidae to Ostreidae1
- Results of the Puritan-American Museum of Natural History expedition to western Mexico. Part 7: Corals and coral reefs in the Gulf of California1
Each of the 6 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 Spondylus princeps
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Spondylus princeps was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itSpondylus through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Broderip 1833