Chione
Searched as Chione (Lirophora) latilirata athleta. The Paleobiology Database treats Chione as the accepted name.
Chione is a genus of common, edible marine bivalve molluscs, in the family Veneridae, which arose in the early Miocene or Late Eocene in the tropical Western Atlantic region. Species of the genus are today distributed across the Western Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Some members of the genus were amongst the first animals to be scientifically classified. Others have been a significant food source for indigenous people. They are the most common bivalves, both living and fossil, in Florida.

RealGatba · 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
- VenerinaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB
- Life habit
- infaunalPBDB
- Motility
- facultatively mobilePBDB
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
Time the record covers
At most 2.8 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 5.333 Mya and 2.58 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
5 occurrences of Chione on record, most of them in the Pliocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. 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
5 occurrences- Pliocene100%
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
2 formations
- Jackson Bluff Formation · Alum Bluff Group3
- Tamiami Formation2
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The named rock units Chione has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Chione and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Chione and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
4,019 taxa- Turritella44 sites
- Anadara39 sites
- Dentalium28 sites
- Oliva23 sites
- Anomia22 sites
- Tellina22 sites
- Balanus20 sites
- Macrocallista maculata20 sites
- Parvilucina multistriata20 sites
- Cerithium19 sites
- Nuculana acuta19 sites
- Ostrea19 sites
- Pitar19 sites
- Chama18 sites
- Conus18 sites
- Marginella18 sites
- Acteocina canaliculata17 sites
- Anomalocardia17 sites
- Arcopsis adamsi17 sites
- Crepidula fornicata17 sites
- Ervilia17 sites
- Acteocina16 sites
- Architectonica nobilis16 sites
- Cardium16 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 295 sites for Chione, 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
2 references- Miocene pelecypods of the Choctawatchee Formation of Florida3
- Geology of the Western Everglades Area, Southern Florida2
Each of the 5 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 content2
Picture of Chione
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- RealGatba
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- Shellie Luallin
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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 itVenerinae through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (von Mühlfield 1811)