Lutraria lutraria

Lutraria lutraria is a species of large marine bivalve mollusc in the family Mactridae. Its common names include the otter shell and the common otter shell. It occurs in coastal regions of the north east Atlantic Ocean where it lives buried in the sand.

Lutraria lutraria

Jan Johan ter Poorten · 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
LutrariaPBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB, for Mactridae
Life habit
infaunalPBDB, for Mactridae
Motility
facultatively mobilePBDB, for Mactridae
Vision
blindPBDB, for Bivalvia

Time the record covers

At least 20 million years on record.

The record covers at least 20.45 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Oligocene — about 0 of 19 occurrencesMiocene — about 6 of 19 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 4 of 19 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 9 of 19 occurrencesPleistocene24–23 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 1 occurrence13–13 Mya — about 2 occurrences5.5–4.7 Mya — about 1 occurrence4.7–3.9 Mya — about 1 occurrence3.9–3.1 Mya — about 1 occurrence3.1–2.4 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.4–1.6 Mya — about 2 occurrences1.6–785 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence785 ka–0 Mya — about 5 occurrences20.45 Mya129 ka23.5 Mya0 Mya

19 occurrences of Lutraria lutraria 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

19 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

5 formations

Coralline Crag — 52.75°N, 1.53°ECoralline Crag — 52.03°N, 1.38°ECoralline Crag — 52.12°N, 1.55°EPreplans Sandstone — 46.22°N, 12.80°EBurgeschleinitz — 48.63°N, 15.78°ERed Crag — 52.75°N, 1.53°EWexford Gravels — 52.43°N, 6.33°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Lutraria lutraria has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 11 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Lutraria lutraria and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Lutraria lutraria and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

487 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 13 sites for Lutraria lutraria, 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

10 references

Each of the 19 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 Lutraria lutraria

Credit
Jan Johan ter Poorten
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Lutraria lutraria 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 itLutraria through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Linnaeus 1767)