Mytilaster

Mytilaster is a genus of marine mussels from the warmer waters of the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Basin. The type species is Mytilaster lineatus.

Mytilaster

Yuriy Kvach · 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
MytilidaePBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB, for Mytilidae
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Mytilidae
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB, for Mytilidae
Vision
blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
Environment
lagoonal,coastal,inner shelf,outer shelf,oceanic,brackish,freshwaterPBDB, for Mytilidae

Time the record covers

At least 168 million years on record.

The record covers at least 168.6 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 174.7 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Early Jurassic — about 0 of 14 occurrencesMiddle Jurassic — about 1 of 14 occurrencesLate Jurassic — about 0 of 14 occurrencesEarly Cretaceous — about 0 of 14 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 3 of 14 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 14 occurrencesEocene — about 0 of 14 occurrencesOligocene — about 0 of 14 occurrencesMiocene — about 8 of 14 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 14 occurrencesPleistocene — about 2 of 14 occurrences178–172 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences172–166 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences77–71 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences71–65 Mya — about 3 occurrences18–12 Mya — about 6 occurrences12–5.9 Mya — about 2 occurrences5.9–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences168.6 Mya129 ka178 Mya0 Mya

14 occurrences of Mytilaster on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

14 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

Roca — 35.90°S, 69.53°WRoca — 35.52°S, 69.72°WRoca — 35.68°S, 69.67°WMamara — 39.39°N, 26.84°EWeglin — 50.72°N, 21.95°EWeglinek — 50.72°N, 21.95°EBadamu limestone — 32.12°N, 57.07°E

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Mytilaster has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Mytilaster and its relatives

Miocene

Where Mytilaster and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

171 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 9 sites for Mytilaster, 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

9 references

Each of the 14 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 content2

Picture of Mytilaster

Credit
Yuriy Kvach
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

CT scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Mytilaster lineatus · usnm:invertebrate zoology:201985

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 itMytilidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.