The story of Clinopegma stantoni has been simmering here in Santa Cruz County for the past 116 years but is one that has been 5 million years in the making! A little background on the name and history of this giant sea snail: Clino refers to slope and pegma is peg = pointed stick The species is named in honor of Dr. Timothy W. Stanton, chief paleontologist. United States Geological Survey, whose work on Mesozoic faunas is well known.
The genus Clinopegma was named by Ulysses S. Grant, IV and Hoyt Rodney Gale published in 1931 in their monumental work on Pliocene and Pleistocene fossil mollusks of California. Interestingly, here, U.S. Grant the IV, was the grandson of Ulysses S. Grant the first, president of the United States. His grandson became a distinguished professor of paleontology at Berkeley
With regards to Clinopegma stantoni the species was named by Ralph Arnold in 1908 from the Año Nuevo park on the south side of the point in the upper member of the Purisima Fm. between Tunitas Creek and Pescadero Creek and near Ano Nuevo Creek in San Mateo County and also between New Brighton and Capitola beaches here in Santa Cruz and a couple other minor places and that’s it!
Coincidentally, Arnold also named a brand new species of Brittle Star, Amphiura sanctaecrucis that very same year of 1908 and that was discovered high up in the Santa Cruz Mountains and recently re-discovered en masse, dozens of individuals, in what’s called a brittle bed, but more on that in the movie…
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