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Description: | Specimen of a fossil gastropod, Athleta luctator, collected from the Barton Group (Barton Beds ?) of Tertiary, Late Eocene, Lutetian - Bartonian age from Barton, Bournemouth, Hampshire (SE England).
This thick sea snail shell has a pattern of spiral ridges and vertical ribs on the outside. Athleta lived in warm subtropical shallow coastal waters in a community made up mainly of gastropods and bivalves. It was a predator and a scavenger that fed on live molluscs, dead animals and plants on the sea floor. The snail shell was one of the first British fossils to be given a scientific name using the new Linnean classification system (using a Latin genus and species name) by Daniel Solander in 1766.
The specimen was found in Hampshire.
It is from the Tertiary period (65 - 1.8 million years ago) | Publisher: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Subjects: | Classification: Animalia, Invertebrata, Mollusca, Gastropoda | Temporal: | Tertiary period (65 - 1.8 million years ago) | Source: | Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums | Identifier: | http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/geofinder/se... | Go to resource |
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