Ostrea compressirostra
Ostrea compressirostra is a species of prehistoric saltwater oyster, a fossil that is found in the Yorktown Formation, Chowan River Formation, Waccamaw Formation, and their equivalents in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Its maximum size is roughly 15 centimetres (5.9 in) in length.

via iDigBio · CC0 · via iDigBio. 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
- OstreaPBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Ostreidae
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Ostreidae
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Ostreidae
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
- Environment
- hypersaline,marine,brackishPBDB, for Ostreidae
Time the record covers
At least 52 million years on record.
The record covers at least 56 Mya to 3.6 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 59.24 Mya to 2.58 Mya.
13 occurrences of Ostrea compressirostra on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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
13 occurrencesThese 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
- Eastover Formation · Chesapeake Group8
- Yorktown Formation1
- Murdock Station Formation · Hawthorn Group1
- Pendleton Ferry Formation · Wilcox Group1
- Aquia Formation1
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The named rock units Ostrea compressirostra has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Ostrea compressirostra and its relatives
MioceneWhere Ostrea compressirostra and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
100 taxa- Isognomon (Hippochaeta)6 sites
- Mercenaria druidi6 sites
- Chesapecten middlesexensis middlesexensis5 sites
- Astarte rappahannockensis3 sites
- Chesapecten middlesexensis ceccae3 sites
- Dallarca carolinensis clisea3 sites
- Euloxa3 sites
- Glossus fraterna3 sites
- Marvacrassatella3 sites
- Astarte cobhamensis2 sites
- Cetacea2 sites
- Chesapecten jeffersonius2 sites
- Chondrichthyes2 sites
- Costaglycymeris mixoni2 sites
- Costaglycymeris virginiae2 sites
- Dallarca carolinensis carolinensis2 sites
- Dallarca carolinensis rotunda2 sites
- Decapoda2 sites
- Ecphora gardnerae whiteoakensis2 sites
- Ecphora kochi2 sites
- Lirophora dalli2 sites
- Lirophora vredenburgi2 sites
- Lucinoma contracta2 sites
- Marvacrassatella surryensis2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Ostrea compressirostra, 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
6 references- Molluscan biostratigraphy of the Miocene Middle Atlantic Coastal Plain of North America8
- Petuch and Roberts, 20071
- The G.D Harris 1890 manuscript on the stratigraphy of Miocene and Pliocene beds at Yorktown, Virginia1
- Well-boring at Brandywine Lighthouse in Delaware Bay. Part I. - Geology and Macrofossils1
- Lower Eocene Faunal Units of Lousiana1
- Contributions to the Eocene fauna of the Middle Atlantic slope1
Each of the 13 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 content1

Picture of Ostrea compressirostra
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Ostrea compressirostra 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 itOstrea through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Say 1824