Cultellus tenuis

Not Cultellus tenuis. This is Siliqua patula (Dixon, 1789), a relative — both are Pharidae.
Sean Cozart · CC BY-NC 4.0 · via GBIF. 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
- CultellusPBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Pharidae
- Life habit
- infaunalPBDB, for Pharidae
- Motility
- facultatively mobilePBDB, for Pharidae
- 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.
2 occurrences of Cultellus tenuis 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
2 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
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The named rock units Cultellus tenuis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Cultellus tenuis and its relatives
PlioceneWhere Cultellus tenuis and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.
Found in the same rock
279 taxa- Abra alba2 sites
- Aequipecten opercularis2 sites
- Arca lactea2 sites
- Archierato maugeriae2 sites
- Arcopagia (Arcopagia) crassa2 sites
- Astarte (Digitariopsis) obliquata burtinea2 sites
- Astarte digitaria2 sites
- Astarte gracilis2 sites
- Astarte incrassata2 sites
- Astarte mutabilis2 sites
- Barnea (Barnea) cylindrica2 sites
- Bornia (Bornia) deltoidea2 sites
- Cancellaria costellifera2 sites
- Cardita chamaeformis2 sites
- Cardita orbicularis2 sites
- Cardita scalaris2 sites
- Cardita senilis2 sites
- Cardium nodosum2 sites
- Caryocorbula striata2 sites
- Chama gryphoides2 sites
- Clavatula costata2 sites
- Clavatula linearis2 sites
- Clavatula mitrula2 sites
- Corbula2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Cultellus tenuis, 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
1 referenceEach of the 2 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 Siliqua patula (Dixon, 1789)
- Source
- GBIF
- Credit
- Sean Cozart
- Licence
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence does not allow it
No 3D scan was found. Smithsonian Open Access, MorphoSource and Sketchfab were all searched.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itCultellus through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Philippi 1836)