Donax trunculus
The truncate donax, abrupt wedge shell, wedge clam or coquina clam, is a bivalve species in the family Donacidae.

Didier Descouens · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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
- DonaxPBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Donax
- Life habit
- infaunalPBDB, for Donax
- Motility
- facultatively mobilePBDB, for Donax
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
Time the record covers
At least 2.4 million years on record.
The record covers at least 2.58 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 3.6 Mya to 11.7 ka.
5 occurrences of Donax trunculus on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
5 occurrences- Pliocene20%
- Pleistocene80%
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
3 formations
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The named rock units Donax trunculus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Donax trunculus and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Donax trunculus and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
205 taxa- Chama gryphoides2 sites
- Gastrochaena (Rocellaria) dubia2 sites
- Glycymeris2 sites
- Lucinella divaricata2 sites
- Nucula (Nucula) nucleus2 sites
- Pitar (Pitar) rudis2 sites
- Abra alba1 site
- Abra obovalis1 site
- Acanthocardia (Acanthocardia) echinata1 site
- Acanthochitona fascicularis1 site
- Acila (Truncacila) cobboldae1 site
- Aequipecten opercularis1 site
- Alvania1 site
- Amyclina labiosa1 site
- Angulus1 site
- Anomia ephippium1 site
- Antalis1 site
- Aporrhais1 site
- Aporrhais pespelecani1 site
- Arca lactea1 site
- Arca noae1 site
- Archierato maugeriae1 site
- Arcopagia (Arcopagia) crassa1 site
- Arctica islandica1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Donax trunculus, and this reads all 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
4 references- Recherches sur le Neogene et le Quaternaire marins de la cote Atlantique du Maroc2
- The marine fossils malacofauna in a Plio-Pleistocene section from Vallin Buio (Livorno, Italy)1
- Ostracods and bivalves from an Upper Pleistocene (Tyrrhenian) marine terrace near Altinova (Izmit Province, Turkey)1
- Wood, 18501
Each of the 5 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. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Donax trunculus
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Didier Descouens
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
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 itDonax through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Linnaeus 1758