Meretrix

Searched as Meretrix chalcedonica. The Paleobiology Database treats Meretrix as the accepted name.

Meretrix is a genus of edible saltwater clams, marine bivalve molluscs in the family Veneridae, the Venus clams. The genus first appeared in the fossil record during the Cenomanian.

Meretrix

Anna Frodesiak · 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
MeretricinaePBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB, for Veneridae
Life habit
infaunalPBDB, for Veneridae
Motility
facultatively mobilePBDB, for Veneridae
Vision
blindPBDB, for Bivalvia

Time the record covers

At most 13 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 72.2 Mya and 59.24 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Late Cretaceous — about 1 of 17 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 16 of 17 occurrencesPaleocene72–72 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences72–71 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences71–71 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences71–70 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences70–70 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences70–69 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences69–69 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences69–68 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences68–68 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences68–67 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences67–67 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences67–66 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences66–66 Mya — about 1 occurrence66–65 Mya — about 2 occurrences65–65 Mya — about 2 occurrences65–64 Mya — about 2 occurrences64–64 Mya — about 2 occurrences64–63 Mya — about 2 occurrences63–63 Mya — about 2 occurrences63–62 Mya — about 2 occurrences62–62 Mya — about 2 occurrences62–62 Mya — about 1 occurrence62–61 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences61–61 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences61–60 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences60–60 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences60–59 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences72.7 Mya58.7 Mya

17 occurrences of Meretrix on record, most of them in the Paleocene. 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

17 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

Lefipán — 42.67°S, 69.98°WLefipán — 42.69°S, 69.84°WLefipán — 42.77°S, 69.85°WLefipan — 42.69°S, 69.84°WLefipan — 42.62°S, 69.98°W

Loading coastlines…

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

Meretrix and its relatives

Paleocene

Where Meretrix and its relatives were recorded in the Paleocene.

Found in the same rock

1,817 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 101 sites for Meretrix, 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

4 references

Each of the 17 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 content3

Picture of Meretrix

Credit
Anna Frodesiak
Licence
CC0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
In Copyright
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Meretrix meretrix · fmnh:invertebrate zoology:309781

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC0 Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

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 itMeretricinae through timeFormations of the PaleoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Lamarck 1799)