Ecphora [SEP] parent taxon
Ecphora
Ecphora is the common name for a group of extinct predatory marine gastropod mollusks within the family Muricidae, the rocks snails or murexes. The common name is based on the first officially described genus, "Ecphora". The entire lineage of these ocenebrinid murexes are descended from the Eocene murex, "Tritonopsis". Ecphoras are indigenous to the North American Eastern Seaboard, being found in marine strata from the Late Eocene until their extinction during the Pliocene. Many ecphora species are important index fossils.
Etymology.
The
species which is found from Pliocene strata in Virginia to Florida. The Miocene-aged specimens found in Maryland have been assigned to a different taxon, "Ecphora gardnerae".
Life habits.
As with most other muricids, "Ecphora" sea snails bored holes through the hard shells of other mollusks, usually bivalves, or sometimes other snails, including other, smaller "Ecphora"s, in order to feed on their soft insides using a toothed, ribbonlike appendage (common to almost all gastropods) known as a radula.