Mytilidae
The Mytilidae are a family of small to large marine and brackish-water bivalve molluscs in the order Mytilida. One of the genera, Limnoperna, inhabits freshwater environments. Mytilidae, which contains some 52 genera, is the only extant family within the order Mytilida.

Benutzer:Darkone · CC BY-SA 2.0 · 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- Also called
- musselPBDB
- Sits inside
- MytiloideaPBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
- Environment
- lagoonal,coastal,inner shelf,outer shelf,oceanic,brackish,freshwaterPBDB
Time the record covers
At least 424 million years on record.
The record covers at least 425 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 426.7 Mya to 0 Mya.
6,118 occurrences of Mytilidae on record, most of them in the Late Cretaceous. 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
6,118 occurrences- Silurianunder 1%
- Devonianunder 1%
- Carboniferous1%
- Permian3%
- Early Triassicunder 1%
- Middle Triassic2%
- Late Triassic5%
- Early Jurassic10%
- Middle Jurassic10%
- Late Jurassic11%
- Early Cretaceous4%
- Late Cretaceous12%
- Paleocene2%
- Eocene8%
- Oligocene4%
- Miocene10%
- Pliocene3%
- Pleistocene11%
- Holocene2%
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
1075 formations
- Dhruma Formation · Shaqra Group103
- Tataouine Formation83
- Alcobaca Formation82
- Woodbine Formation68
- Vaqueros Formation48
- Chari Formation48
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The named rock units Mytilidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1,051 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 1,827 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Mytilidae and its relatives
Late CretaceousWhere Mytilidae and its relatives were recorded in the Late Cretaceous.
Found in the same rock
2,183 taxa- Modiolus81 sites
- Nuculana62 sites
- Nucula55 sites
- Astarte51 sites
- Panopea48 sites
- Pycnodonte vesicularis45 sites
- Cyprimeria44 sites
- Exogyra (Exogyra) costata44 sites
- Granocardium44 sites
- Serpula42 sites
- Pholadomya41 sites
- Botula40 sites
- Cymbophora39 sites
- Lithophaga39 sites
- Syncyclonema39 sites
- Anomia argentaria38 sites
- Crassatella vadosa37 sites
- Linearis37 sites
- Aphrodina36 sites
- Veniella conradi35 sites
- Crenella serica34 sites
- Pinna34 sites
- Ammonoidea32 sites
- Camptonectes32 sites
The Paleobiology Database records at least 1,348 sites for Mytilidae, and this reads 240 of them. Of that, one read hit the database's own return limit, so every count below is a floor rather than a total. 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
1,197 references- Unpublished data239
- Palokologie und zeitliche Verbreitung benthischer Faunengemeinschaften im Unterjura von Chile168
- Unpublished data on Cretaceous-Paleocene molluscan assemblages143
- Le Jurassique D`Arabie Centrale129
- Palökologie benthischer Faunen aus dem Unter-Toarc SW-Europas100
- Neogene and Paleogene Molluscan (Bivalvia) Cenozones of the Russian Northeast.89
- Palökologie benthischer Faunengemeinschaften und Taxonomie der Bivalven im Jura von Südtunesien88
- Unpublished data from Kachchh77
- Geologie, Paleontologie et Paleoecologie du Bathonien au sud-ouest du Massif Ardennais77
- Upper Cretaceous (Maestrichtian) larger invertebrates from the Haustator bilira Assemblage Zone in the Atlantic Coastal Plain with further data for the East Gulf72
- Larger invertebrate fossils of the Woodbine formation (Cenomanian) of Texas72
- Palökologische und biofazielle Analyse des Kimmeridge (Oberjura) von Consolacao, Mittelportugal [Paleoecological and biofacies analysis of the Kimmeridgian (Upper Jurassic) of Consolacao, central Portugal]71
Each of the 6,118 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. 1,185 further references are not listed. 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 Mytilidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Benutzer:Darkone
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Mytilidae”
- 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 itMytiloidea through timeFormations of the Late CretaceousThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Rafinesque 1815