Zoila chathamensis

Zoila chathamensis is an extinct species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusc, in the family Cypraeidae. Known from fossils dating to the late Paleocene and early Eocene from the Chatham Islands, New Zealand, the species is the earliest known member of the genus Zoila, likely representing an ancestral form to Australian members of the genus.

Zoila chathamensis

Auckland War Memorial Museum · CC BY 4.0 · 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
ZoilaPBDB
Diet
omnivore, grazerPBDB, for Cypraeidae
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Cypraeidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Cypraeidae
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda

Time the record covers

At most 4 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 56 Mya and 52 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Paleocene — about 0 of 2 occurrencesEocene — about 2 of 2 occurrencesEocene56–56 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences56–56 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences56–56 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences56–55 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences55–55 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences55–55 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences55–55 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences55–55 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences55–55 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences55–54 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences54–54 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences54–54 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences54–54 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences54–54 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences54–54 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences54–53 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences53–53 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences53–53 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences53–53 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences53–53 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences53–53 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences53–52 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences52–52 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences52–52 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences56.5 Mya51.5 Mya

2 occurrences of Zoila chathamensis on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

2 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

1 formation

Red Bluff Tuff — 44.30°S, 176.25°WRed Bluff Tuff — 44.24°S, 176.24°W

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The named rock units Zoila chathamensis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Zoila chathamensis and its relatives

Eocene

Where Zoila chathamensis and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

43 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Zoila chathamensis, 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

2 references

Each of the 2 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 Zoila chathamensis

Credit
Auckland War Memorial Museum
Licence
CC BY 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Zoila chathamensis 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 itZoila through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Cernohorsky 1971)