Astarte
Searched as Astarte (Astarte) goldfussi praecursor. The Paleobiology Database treats Astarte as the accepted name.
Astarte is a genus of bivalve mollusc in the Astartidae family. It was circumscribed by James Sowerby in 1816. As of 2017, WoRMS recognizes approximately 33 species in this genus.

George Brettingham Sowerby II · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- AstartinaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Crassatelloidea
- Life habit
- infaunalPBDB, for Crassatelloidea
- Motility
- facultatively mobilePBDB, for Crassatelloidea
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Crassatelloidea
- Environment
- marinePBDB, for Crassatelloidea
Time the record covers
At most 4.3 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 27.3 Mya and 23.04 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
2 occurrences of Astarte on record, most of them in the Oligocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
2 occurrences- Oligocene100%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
2 formations
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Astarte has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Astarte and its relatives
OligoceneWhere Astarte and its relatives were recorded in the Oligocene.
Found in the same rock
2,024 taxa- Camptonectes80 sites
- Ammonoidea71 sites
- Isognomon55 sites
- Entolium orbiculare53 sites
- Pinna50 sites
- Pleuromya48 sites
- Buchia mosquensis45 sites
- Grammatodon45 sites
- Plagiostoma45 sites
- Belemnitida43 sites
- Nuculana42 sites
- Serpula42 sites
- Isocyprina40 sites
- Turritella40 sites
- Taimyrothyris38 sites
- Corbula37 sites
- Syncyclonema36 sites
- Cymbophora34 sites
- Anomia argentaria33 sites
- Dentalium33 sites
- Granocardium33 sites
- Lucina33 sites
- Modiolus33 sites
- Crenella serica32 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 1,073 sites for Astarte, and this reads 240 of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
2 references- A Late Oligocene (Chattian B) Molluscan Fauna from the Coastal Cliff at Mogenstrup, North of Skive, Jutland, Denmark1
- A late Oligocene (Chattian B) mollusc fauna from the clay-pit of Galten Brickworks at Norre Vissing, Jylland, Denmark1
Each of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.
Media and terms
Media content3
Picture of Astarte
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- George Brettingham Sowerby II
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Licence
- not stated by the source
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Astarte crenata · USNM:IZ:USNM 765264
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itAstartinae through timeFormations of the OligoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Sowerby 1816