Asperarca

Asperarca is a genus of bivalves in the family Arcidae which currently consists of eight species. They attach themselves to rocks or hard substrates with byssal threads in shallower, coastal waters. It was first described by Dr. Federico Sacco in December 1898 with the type taxon A. nodulosa that has been recorded throughout the coastal Mediterranean Sea, Baltic Sea, and northeastern Atlantic Ocean. The earliest known species are A. acuta and A. microida which were found in 2014 in Ukraine from the Eocene Epoch.

Asperarca

Wilhelm Kobelt · Public Domain · 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
ArcidaePBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB, for Arcidae
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Arcidae
Motility
facultatively mobile, attachedPBDB, for Arcidae
Vision
limitedPBDB, for Arcidae
Environment
lagoonal,coastal,inner shelf,outer shelf,oceanic,brackish,freshwaterPBDB, for Arcidae

Time the record covers

At least 7.1 million years on record.

The record covers at least 7.246 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 13.82 Mya to 11.7 ka.

Miocene — about 2 of 4 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 4 occurrencesPleistocene — about 2 of 4 occurrencesPleistocene14–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences10–9.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.5–9.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences9.1–8.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.6–8.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences8.1–7.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.6–7.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.2–6.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.7–6.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.2–5.7 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.7–5.3 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.9–1.4 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences1.4–955 ka Mya — about 0.5 occurrences955 ka–477 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences477 ka–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence7.246 Mya129 ka14.3 Mya0 Mya

4 occurrences of Asperarca 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

4 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.

Asperarca and its relatives

Miocene

Where Asperarca and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

62 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 1 site for Asperarca, 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

4 references

Each of the 4 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Asperarca

Credit
Wilhelm Kobelt
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Asperarca 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 itArcidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Sacco 1898