Macoma

Searched as Macoma cf. nasuta kelseyi. The Paleobiology Database treats Macoma as the accepted name.

Macoma is a large genus of saltwater clams, marine bivalve molluscs in the family Tellinidae, the tellins.

Macoma

Jan Delsing · Public Domain · 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
TellinidaePBDB
Diet
deposit feederPBDB, for Tellinidae
Life habit
infaunalPBDB, for Tellinidae
Motility
facultatively mobilePBDB, for Tellinidae
Vision
blindPBDB, for Bivalvia

Time the record covers

At most 780 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 1.8 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pliocene — about 0 of 10 occurrencesPleistocene — about 10 of 10 occurrencesPleistocene2.6–2.5 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences2.5–2.5 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences2.5–2.4 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences2.4–2.4 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences2.4–2.3 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences2.3–2.2 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences2.2–2.2 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences2.2–2.1 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences2.1–2.1 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences2.1–2.0 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences2.0–2.0 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences2.0–1.9 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences1.9–1.8 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences1.8–1.8 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences3.08 Mya1.3 Mya

10 occurrences of Macoma on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

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

1 formation

Careaga Sandstone — 34.88°N, 120.51°WCareaga Sandstone — 34.83°N, 120.38°WCareaga Sandstone — 34.74°N, 120.41°W

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

Macoma and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Macoma and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

2,473 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 616 sites for Macoma, 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 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. 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 Macoma

Credit
Jan Delsing
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Credit
Urielgc
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

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 itTellinidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Leach 1819)