1.8" Ecphora Gardnerae Gastropod Fossil Shell Lee Creek Miocene Epoch North Carolina

Location: Lee Creek, North Carolina

Weight: 0.6 Ounces 

Dimensions: 1.8 Inches Long, 1.6 Inches Wide, 1.3 Inches Thick

The item pictured is the one you will receive. 

Miocene Epoch, 5.3 million to 23.3 million years old.

Ecphora gardnerae is an extinct predatory sea snail, a gastropod of the family Muricidae, and the official state fossil of Maryland (designated in 1994).

These snails were carnivorous, using their radula to bore holes into the shells of other mollusks—typically bivalves—to access and consume their soft tissues.

E. gardnerae lived during the Miocene epoch (approximately 23.03 to 5.33 million years ago). Fossils of this species are found in Miocene-aged marine strata along the East Coast of the United States.

The taxonomy of Ecphora has a complex history. Maryland specimens were originally misidentified as Ecphora quadricostata, a species now restricted to Pliocene strata from Virginia to Florida. In 1987, the Maryland fossils were correctly reclassified as Ecphora gardnerae by Druid Wilson and were further subdivided into subspecies by Ward and Gilinsky in 1988.