Ecphora gardnerae gardnerae

Taxobox
name = "Ecphora gardnerae gardnerae"

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image_width = 220px
image_caption = Ecphora gardnerae gardnerae, drawn by J.C. McConnell [ Clark, Shattuck & Dall, "The Miocene Deposits of Maryland," Maryland Geological Survey (1904), Pl. LII no. 1 as "Ecphora quadricostata". ]
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Mollusca
classis = Gastropoda
subclassis = Orthogastropoda
superordo = Caenogastropoda
ordo = Sorbeoconcha
subordo = Hypsogastropoda
infraordo = Neogastropoda
superfamilia = Muricoidea
familia = Muricidae
genus = "Ecphora"
species = "E. gardnerae gardnerae"
binomial = "Ecphora gardnerae gardnerae"
binomial_authority = Wilson, 1987

"Ecphora gardnerae gardnerae" is a subspecies of fossil predatory sea snail, an extinct marine gastropod mollusk in the family Muricidae, the rock snails.

Geological history

These large carnivorous sea snails now found in Maryland and Virginia lived during the Miocene epoch, and they became extinct more than five million years ago. Originally called Ecphora quadricostata, a Pliocene species found from Virginia to Florida, the Miocene species found in Maryland have subsequently been assigned to a different taxon, Ecphora gardnerae. [ Ward & Gilinsky, 'Ecphora (Gastropoda: Muricidae) from the Chesapeake Group of Maryland and Virginia', "Notulae Naturae", No. 469 (1988), p. 1, available on line [http://books.google.com/books?id=84doo7Wb5DAC&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7&dq=%22Ecphora+quadricostata%22&source=web&ots=tLd8QK1G8X&sig=JuWK4vDf7GNhJL4YN92cVRLlooY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=10&ct=result#PPA1,M1 here] ]

Life habits

"Ecphora" sea snails bored holes through the hard shells of other mollusks and other kinds of prey, in order to feed on their soft insides using a toothed, ribbonlike appendage (common to almost all gastropods) known as a radula.

Commemoration of the fossil

In March 1994, Dr. Eric Seifter testified before the Maryland Legislature that the classification of the Maryland State Fossil, Ecphora quadricostata was invalid (quadricostata is not actually found in Maryland) and needed to be changed to Ecphora gardnerae gardnerae.

References

External links

* [http://www.mgs.md.gov/esic/fs/fs6.html Maryland Geological Survey: Maryland's State Fossil Shell]