Gryphaea

Searched as Gryphaea pharaonum aviculina. The Paleobiology Database treats Gryphaea as the accepted name.

Gryphaea is a genus of marine gryphaeid oysters known from the Mesozoic Era. Its fossils are almost worldwide-known but they are mostly common in Jurassic strata from Europe, North America, and South America. Gryphaea fossils are particularly important in the tectonically deformed Andean basins of Argentina and Chile and serve as index fossils. Gryphaea species appeared during the Late Triassic period and flourished during the Early Jurassic, eventually becoming extinct around the Late Jurassic. The name "devil's toenail" originated because of the curved shells of Gryphaea resembling a toenail. There used to be a common folk belief that carrying one of these fossils could prevent rheumatism.

Gryphaea

Hallettx · 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
GryphaeinaePBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB, for Gryphaeidae
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Gryphaeidae
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB, for Gryphaeidae
Vision
blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
Environment
marine,brackishPBDB, for Ostreida

Time the record covers

At most 7.1 million years on record.

The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 48.07 Mya and 41.03 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.

Eocene — about 1 of 1 occurrenceEocene48–48 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences48–48 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences48–47 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences47–47 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences47–47 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences47–47 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences47–46 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences46–46 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences46–46 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences46–46 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences46–45 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences45–45 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences45–45 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences45–45 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences45–44 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences44–44 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences44–44 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences44–43 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences43–43 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences43–43 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences43–43 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences43–42 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences42–42 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences42–42 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences42–42 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences42–41 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences41–41 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences48.6 Mya40.5 Mya

1 occurrence of Gryphaea on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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

1 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

El Fuqaha — 27.62°N, 36.20°E

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

Gryphaea and its relatives

Eocene

Where Gryphaea and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.

Found in the same rock

592 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 879 sites for Gryphaea, 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

1 reference

Each of the 1 occurrence 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 content2

Picture of Gryphaea

Credit
Hallettx
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution-NonCommercial
Commercial use
the licence does not allow it

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itGryphaeinae through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lamarck 1801