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Ecphora Question


Froze Toez

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Has anyone seen or collected an ecphora operculum? This is bugging me because I think I've seen them and ignored them thinking they were something else. A small very thin shell that looks like a fossil jingle shell, but that has the reddish brown color of an ecphora. It's a long story about how I got to this eureka moment, but I was wondering why only the ecphora and this one other shell kept their color. Unless....Eureka! Collecting site is York River State Park in Virginia. Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated. If I'm right, I need to tell another collector that I gave them the wrong information.

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Gastropods produce either a "shell" operculum which is the same aragonitic material as the shell itself or a "horny" operculum which is similar to human fingernails. Turban shells and some naticids have a shell operculum while most gastropods have a horny operculum which do not preserve in the fossil record. Ecphora is unique in that it is one of the few gastropods that have a calcitic shell similar to that of pectens and oysters. It would not have produced an aragonitic operculum and I suspect that it probably had a horny operculum.

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Turbo rhectogrammicus Dall, 1892 with shell operculum. Upper Pliocene Pinecrest (Bed 10) member of the Tamiami Formation, Sarasota County, Florida.

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Neverita duplicatus (Say, 1822) with horny operculum. Recent, Sandy Hook, Monmouth County, New Jersey.

"A problem solved is a problem caused"--Karl Pilkington

"I was dead for millions of years before I was born and it never inconvenienced me a bit." -- Mark Twain

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Thank you very much for the answer and the pictures. When I get out there again I will post a picture of what I'm talking about. I realize I can't get a definite yes or no without the pix, I was hoping that someone had an actual operculum from an ecphora. If finding one is unlikely then I would like to know what I'm seeing that keeps the color like that. After looking at your pictures I'm getting very curious and itchy to get out there!

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