Olivella mutica
Olivella mutica, common name the variable dwarf olive, is a species of marine gastropod mollusc, commonly eaten by some starfish. They are distributed in the West Atlantic, from the coast of Brazil through the Gulf of Mexico to around the Chesapeake Bay in the United States. In Florida, they are known to spawn for only one month early in the year.

Say, 1822 · 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
- OlivellaPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Olividae
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Olividae
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Olividae
- Vision
- limitedPBDB, for Gastropoda
Time the record covers
At least 5.3 million years on record.
The record covers at least 5.333 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 11.63 Mya to 0 Mya.
62 occurrences of Olivella mutica 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
62 occurrences- Miocene10%
- Pliocene11%
- Pleistocene76%
- Holocene3%
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
17 formations
- Pamlico Formation9
- Caloosahatchee Formation7
- Fort Thompson Formation6
- Canepatch Formation5
- Springvale Formation5
- Chowan RIver Formation4
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The named rock units Olivella mutica has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Olivella mutica and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Olivella mutica and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
1,237 taxa- Parvilucina multistriata24 sites
- Anomia simplex23 sites
- Crassinella lunulata22 sites
- Neverita duplicatus22 sites
- Nucula (Nucula) proxima21 sites
- Mulinia lateralis20 sites
- Acteocina canaliculata19 sites
- Crepidula plana19 sites
- Turbonilla19 sites
- Anadara (Larkinia) transversa18 sites
- Mercenaria campechiensis18 sites
- Oliva (Ispidula) sayana18 sites
- Turritella18 sites
- Chione cancellata17 sites
- Nuculana acuta17 sites
- Plicatula gibbosa17 sites
- Abra aequalis16 sites
- Crepidula fornicata16 sites
- Seila adamsii15 sites
- Macrocallista (Macrocallista) nimbosa14 sites
- Tectonatica pusilla14 sites
- Dinocardium robustum13 sites
- Glycymeris americana13 sites
- Marginella13 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 42 sites for Olivella mutica, 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
21 references- Unpublished census data from Atlantic coastal plain and circum-Caribbean Neogene assemblages and taxonomic opinions12
- Studies on the marine Pleistocene: Part II. The marine Pleistocene mollusks of eastern North America9
- Neogene Biostratigraphy of the Charlotte Harbor Area in Southwestern Florida6
- Neogene Stratigraphy of the lower Coast Plain of the Carolinas5
- Miocene and Pliocene mollusks from Trinidad5
- Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene Mollusca from the James City and Chowan River Formations at Lee Creek Mine4
- The Pleistocene molluscan fauna from Leisley Shell Pit 1, Hillsborough County, Florida3
- Stratigraphy and paleontology of the Late Neogene strata of the Caloosahatchee River area of southern Florida2
- Geology of the Western Everglades Area, Southern Florida2
- Pliocene Mollusca of Southern Florida2
- Miocene gastropods and scaphopods of the Choctawatchee Formation of Florida2
- Mollusca: Fort Thompson Formation (Late Pleistocene)1
Each of the 62 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. 9 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 content1
Picture of Olivella mutica
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Say, 1822
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Olivella mutica was found in Sketchfab.
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 itOlivella through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Say 1822)