Glossus

Searched as Glossus subtransversus major. The Paleobiology Database treats Glossus as the accepted name.

Glossus is a genus of marine bivalve molluscs in the family Glossidae. Only one species, the oxheart clam, is still extant, living in flat, muddy regions deep off the North Atlantic coastline of Europe.

Glossus

Hectonichus · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
GlossidaePBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB, for Glossidae
Life habit
infaunalPBDB, for Glossidae
Motility
facultatively mobilePBDB, for Glossidae
Vision
blindPBDB, for Bivalvia

Time the record covers

At most 4.5 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 20.45 Mya and 15.98 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Miocene — about 4 of 4 occurrencesMiocene21–20 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences20.9 Mya15.5 Mya

4 occurrences of Glossus on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

4 occurrences

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

1 formation

Fels — 48.51°N, 15.74°EFels — 48.50°N, 15.76°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Glossus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Glossus and its relatives

Miocene

Where Glossus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

3,152 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 192 sites for Glossus, and this reads all of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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

1 reference

Each of the 4 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 doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Glossus

Credit
Hectonichus
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Glossus was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

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 itGlossidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Poli 1795