Lithophaga aristata

Lithophaga aristata, or the Scissor date mussel, is a species of bivalve mollusc in the family Mytilidae. It can be found along the Atlantic coast of North America, ranging from North Carolina to Texas and the West Indies.

Lithophaga aristata

Dillwyn, 1817 · CC0 · 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
LithophagaPBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB, for Lithophaga
Life habit
boringPBDB, for Lithophaga
Motility
stationaryPBDB, for Lithophaga
Vision
blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
Environment
lagoonal,coastal,inner shelf,outer shelf,oceanic,brackish,freshwaterPBDB, for Mytilidae

Time the record covers

At least 20 million years on record.

The record covers at least 20.45 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 27.3 Mya to 0 Mya.

Oligocene — about 1 of 10 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 0 of 10 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 10 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 5 of 10 occurrencesPleistocene28–27 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences27–26 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences26–25 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences25–24 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences24–23 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences3.7–2.8 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences2.8–1.9 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences928 ka–0 Mya — about 8 occurrences20.45 Mya11.7 ka27.8 Mya0 Mya

10 occurrences of Lithophaga aristata 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

10 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

2 formations

Arcadia — 27.89°N, 82.48°WMare — 10.61°N, 63.52°W

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The named rock units Lithophaga aristata has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 8 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Lithophaga aristata and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Lithophaga aristata and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

336 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Lithophaga aristata, 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

7 references

Each of the 10 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 Lithophaga aristata

Credit
Dillwyn, 1817
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Lithophaga aristata 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 itLithophaga through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Dillwyn 1817)