Specimens are known from San Nicolas Island, one of the Channel Islands of California, and from San Pedro in the city of Los Angeles.

[4] The specimens from San Nicolas Island lived during the late Pleistocene.

[5] The San Pedro specimen was a fresh shell collected between 1861 and 1863.

[4] No other fresh specimens have been found since, and the species is thought to be extinct.

It may have become extinct because it lived in a specific and fragile habitat that was rapidly degraded and destroyed by human activity as the human population of Southern California grew.