Ensis minor

Ensis minor, or the jackknife clam, is a long, smooth-shelled, burrowing clam found in the Atlantic Ocean. These clams are often collected for food. Ensis minor can grow up to 17 cm (6.7 in) in length. It is white, sometimes with reddish-brown markings.

Ensis minor

Jean-Charles Chenu (1808-1879) · 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
EnsisPBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB, for Ensis
Life habit
infaunalPBDB, for Ensis
Motility
facultatively mobilePBDB, for Ensis
Vision
blindPBDB, for Bivalvia

Time the record covers

At least 117 thousand years on record.

The record covers at least 129 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 774 ka to 0 Mya.

Pleistocene — about 4 of 8 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 4 of 8 occurrences807 ka–764 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences764 ka–722 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences722 ka–679 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences679 ka–637 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences637 ka–595 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences595 ka–552 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences552 ka–510 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences510 ka–467 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences467 ka–425 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences425 ka–382 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences382 ka–340 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences340 ka–297 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences297 ka–255 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences255 ka–212 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences212 ka–170 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences170 ka–127 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences127 ka–85 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence85 ka–42 ka Mya — about 1 occurrence42 ka–0 Mya — about 5 occurrences129 ka – 11.7 ka1.27 Mya0 Mya

8 occurrences of Ensis minor on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. 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

8 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.

Found in

4 formations

Michoud — 30.05°N, 89.96°WPamlico — 32.78°N, 79.93°WPamlico — 32.69°N, 80.23°WNew Orleans Barrier Trend — 30.05°N, 89.96°WBermont — 26.68°N, 80.67°W

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The named rock units Ensis minor has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 2 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Ensis minor and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Ensis minor and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

367 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Ensis minor, 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

5 references

Each of the 8 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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Ensis minor

Credit
Jean-Charles Chenu (1808-1879)
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Ensis minor 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 itEnsis through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Dall 1899