Epilucina
Epilucina is a genus of small saltwater clams, marine bivalve mollusks in the family Lucinidae, the lucinids. The only extant species is Epilucina californica, found from central California to Baja California.

via iDigBio · CC0 · via iDigBio. 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
- CodakiinaePBDB
- Diet
- chemosymbioticPBDB, for Lucinidae
- Life habit
- deep infaunalPBDB, for Lucinidae
- Motility
- facultatively mobilePBDB, for Lucinidae
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
Time the record covers
At least 61 million years on record.
The record covers at least 61.66 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 66 Mya to 0 Mya.
139 occurrences of Epilucina 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
139 occurrencesThese 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
25 formations
- Unnamed Formation16
- Hatchetigbee Bluff Formation · Wilcox Group11
- Palos Verdes Sand Formation7
- Timms Point Silt Formation6
- Tuscahoma Formation · Wilcox Group5
- San Pedro Sand Formation5
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Epilucina has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. One further formation holds fewer occurrences and is not listed. 52 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Epilucina and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Epilucina and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
1,787 taxa- Callianax biplicata26 sites
- Lottia scabra22 sites
- Nutricola tantilla22 sites
- Turritella22 sites
- Homalopoma (Homalopoma) luridum21 sites
- Tellina21 sites
- Californiconus californicus20 sites
- Crepidula adunca20 sites
- Glans carpenteri20 sites
- Alia carinata19 sites
- Chlorostoma funebrale19 sites
- Dendropoma lituella19 sites
- Eulithidium pulloides19 sites
- Lacuna (Epheria) unifasciata19 sites
- Thylacodes squamigerus19 sites
- Acmaea mitra18 sites
- Amphissa versicolor18 sites
- Antisabia panamensis18 sites
- Cumingia californica18 sites
- Pitar18 sites
- Calorhadia17 sites
- Diodora aspera17 sites
- Littorina (Littorina) scutulata17 sites
- Lottia limatula17 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 119 sites for Epilucina, and this reads all 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
51 references- Geology of San Nicolas Island, California16
- Environmental and biological controls on the diversity and ecology of Late Cretaceous through early Paleogene marine ecosystems in the US Gulf Coastal Plain12
- Impact of lithification on the diversity, size distribution, and recovery dynamics of marine invertebrate assemblages7
- Late Pleistocene molluscan faunas from upper terraces of the Palos Verdes Hills, California7
- Paleontology of the Pleistocene of Point Loma, San Diego County, California7
- The Paleontology and Stratigraphy of the Marine Pliocene and Pleistocene of San Pedro, California7
- A Neogene section northeastern San Clemente Island, California6
- The cool-water Timms Point Pleistocene horizon at San Pedro, California6
- Pleistocene invertebrates from Punta China, Baja California, Mexico, with remarks on the composition of the Pacific coast Quaternary faunas5
- Late Pleistocene faunas from the northwestern coast of Baja California, Mexico4
- On the reconciliation of biostratigraphy and strontium isotope stratigraphy of three southern Californian Plio-Pleistocene formations3
- Resilience of marine invertebrate communities during the early Cenozoic hyperthermals3
Each of the 139 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. 39 further references are not listed. 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 Epilucina
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Epilucina 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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Epilucina”
- 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 itCodakiinae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Dall 1901)