Dicerocardium
Dicerocardium is an extinct genus of fossil saltwater clams, marine heterodont bivalve molluscs, in the family Dicerocardiidae. These bivalves were stationary semi-infaunal suspension feeders.

Hectonichus · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
- DicerocardiidaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Megalodontoidea
- Life habit
- semi-infaunalPBDB, for Megalodontoidea
- Motility
- stationaryPBDB, for Megalodontoidea
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
Time the record covers
At most 36 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 237 Mya and 201.4 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
34 occurrences of Dicerocardium on record, most of them in the Late Triassic. 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
34 occurrences- Late Triassic100%
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
8 formations
- Fődolomit Formation7
- Dolomia Principale Formation6
- Dachstein Formation5
- Dachstein Limestone Formation4
- Dachstein Formation3
- Dolomia stratificata Formation1
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The named rock units Dicerocardium has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 6 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Dicerocardium and its relatives
Late TriassicWhere Dicerocardium and its relatives were recorded in the Late Triassic.
Found in the same rock
129 taxa- Neomegalodon14 sites
- Neomegalodon boeckhi6 sites
- Gemmelarodus5 sites
- Neomegalodon hoernesi4 sites
- Pleuromya loeschmanni4 sites
- Triadomegalodon4 sites
- Ampullospira3 sites
- Costatoria inaequicostata3 sites
- Neomegalodon triqueter3 sites
- Parallelodon rudis3 sites
- Schafhaeutlia3 sites
- Triadomegalodon damesi3 sites
- Costatoria2 sites
- Costatoria whateleyae2 sites
- Myoconcha loeschmanni2 sites
- Paramegalodus eupalliatum2 sites
- Pecten2 sites
- Purpuroidea2 sites
- Triadomegalodon tofanae2 sites
- Triasina hantkeni2 sites
- Worthenia escheri2 sites
- Worthenia gepidorum2 sites
- Zygopleura2 sites
- Actinotubella gusici1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 25 sites for Dicerocardium, 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- Triassische Megalodontaceae - Entwicklung, Stratigraphie und Palaontologie11
- Neue Zweischaler und Brachiopoden aus der Bakonyer Trias [New bivalves and brachiopods from the Bakony Trias]9
- Megalodontidae e Dicerocardiidae del Triassico Superiore di Cortina d'Ampezzo [Megalodontidae and Dicerocardiidae from the Upper Triassic of Cortina d'Ampezzo]7
- Die Leitfossilien der Werfener Schichten und Nachträge zur Fauna des Muschelkalkes der Cassianer und Raibler Schichten sowie des Rhaet und des Dachsteindolomites (Hauptdolomit) [The main fossils of the Werfen Formation]2
- Upper Triassic reef-limestone blocks of southwestern Japan: New data from a Panthalassan seamount1
- Fossilfunde aus dem Hauptdolomit (Nor, Trias) der östlichen Galitaler Alpen (Kärnten, Österreich)1
- Die Brachiopoden, Lamellibranchiaten und Gastropoden der Trias von Timor I1
- Obere Trias von Sumatra (Die Padang-Schichten von West-Sumatra nebst Anhang)1
- Das Westliche Süd-Tirol: geologisch dargestellt1
Each of the 34 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 Dicerocardium
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Hectonichus
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Dicerocardium 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 itDicerocardiidae through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Stoppani 1856