Pteria limula

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
- PteriaPBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Pteria
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Pteria
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Pteria
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
- Environment
- coastal,inner shelf,outer shelf,oceanicPBDB, for Pteriidae
Time the record covers
At least 3.3 million years on record.
The record covers at least 41.03 Mya to 37.71 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 48.07 Mya to 33.9 Mya.
41 occurrences of Pteria limula on record, most of them in the Eocene. 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
41 occurrences- Eocene100%
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
6 formations
- Moodys Branch Formation · Jackson Group27
- Gosport Sand Formation · Claiborne Group7
- Cook Mountain Formation · Claiborne Group2
- Nanjemoy Formation2
- Lisbon Formation · Claiborne Group2
- Jackson Formation1
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The named rock units Pteria limula has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Pteria limula and its relatives
EoceneWhere Pteria limula and its relatives were recorded in the Eocene.
Found in the same rock
657 taxa- Eburneopecten scintillatus23 sites
- Caestocorbula wailesiana21 sites
- Calyptraea (Trochita) aperta21 sites
- Corbula densata21 sites
- Myrtaea (Myrtaea) curta21 sites
- Kapalmerella alveata20 sites
- Spisula jacksonensis20 sites
- Tellinidae20 sites
- Venericardia (Rotundicardia) diversidentata20 sites
- Gastropoda19 sites
- Hipponix19 sites
- Alveinus minutus18 sites
- Callista annexa18 sites
- Glycymeris idonea18 sites
- Actinopterygii17 sites
- Bathytormus flexurus17 sites
- Bivalvia17 sites
- Nucula (Nucula) sphenopsis17 sites
- Retusa jacksonensis17 sites
- Calorhadia (Litorhadia) mater16 sites
- Bullata semen15 sites
- Calyptraphorus stamineus15 sites
- Diplodonta (Diplodonta) ungulina15 sites
- Euspira jacksonensis15 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 33 sites for Pteria limula, 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- Fossil assemblages of a marine transgressive sand, Moody''s Branch Formation (Upper Eocene), Louisiana and Mississippi21
- Catalogue of the Paleocene and Eocene mollusca of the southern and eastern United States. Part 1. Pelecypoda, Amphineura, Pteropoda, Scaphopoda and Cephalopoda7
- Ecological control of evolutionary rates in Paleocene - Eocene marine molluscs3
- Stratigraphic Distribution of Paleocene and Eocene Fossils in the Eastern Gulf Coast Region3
- Resilience of marine invertebrate communities during the early Cenozoic hyperthermals2
- Faunal stability and environmental change in the middle Eocene Gulf Coastal Plain (PhD Thesis, Harvard University)2
- Mollusca of the Moodys Branch Formation, Mississippi1
- Mollusca of the Tertiary formations of Northeastern Mexico1
- Pelecypoda of the St. Maurice and Claiborne stages1
Each of the 41 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 Pteria limula
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Pteria limula was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itPteria through timeFormations of the EoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Conrad 1833