Gryphaea arcuata
Gryphaea arcuata is an extinct species of foam oyster, a bivalve mollusc in the family Gryphaeidae from the Early Jurassic of Europe.

H. Zell · 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
- GryphaeaPBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Gryphaeidae
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB, for Gryphaeidae
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB, for Gryphaeidae
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
- Environment
- marine,brackishPBDB, for Ostreida
Time the record covers
At least 6.6 million years on record.
The record covers at least 199.5 Mya to 192.9 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 201.4 Mya to 161.5 Mya.
145 occurrences of Gryphaea arcuata on record, most of them in the Early Jurassic. 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
145 occurrences- Early Jurassic100%
- Middle Jurassicunder 1%
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
9 formations
- Calcaire a gryphees Formation59
- Blue Lias Formation · Lias Group10
- Cape Stewart Beds Formation6
- Fjerritslev Formation4
- Calcaires à Gryphées Formation2
- Cape Stewart Formation2
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The named rock units Gryphaea arcuata has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 59 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Gryphaea arcuata and its relatives
Early JurassicWhere Gryphaea arcuata and its relatives were recorded in the Early Jurassic.
Found in the same rock
204 taxa- Oxytoma inequivalvis31 sites
- Entolium30 sites
- Liostrea27 sites
- Chlamys textoria22 sites
- Cardinia hybrida21 sites
- Pecten priscus21 sites
- Plagiostoma21 sites
- Gryphaea cymbium20 sites
- Plicatula20 sites
- Tancredia19 sites
- Chlamys substriata18 sites
- Entolium lunare18 sites
- Entolium callosum15 sites
- Pseudolimea duplicata15 sites
- Arcomya14 sites
- Cardinia14 sites
- Grandirhynchia14 sites
- Lima succincta14 sites
- Spiriferina14 sites
- Astarte13 sites
- Hippopodium ponderosum13 sites
- Lima13 sites
- Myoconcha decorata13 sites
- Nuculana13 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 69 sites for Gryphaea arcuata, 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
11 references- Paleoenvironnements dans le Calcaire a gryphees du Lias de Lorraine, de la carriere de Xeuilley au Bassin parisien61
- Dynamische Palaookologie und taxonomische Bearbeitung des Unterjura (Hettangium bis unteres Sinemurium) auf der Schwabischen Alb42
- The Lower Jurassic Rocks of East Greenland Part 122
- A sedimentary and faunal study of the Blue Lias of Dorset and Glamorgan10
- Changes in the bivalve assemblage of an early Jurassic mudstone sequence (the Fjerritslev formation in the Gassum 1 well, Denmark)4
- Moluscos bivalves da Formação de Água de Madeiros (Sinemuriano superior) da Bacia Lusitânica (Portugal)1
- Un remarquable site fossilifère dans le Sinémurien inférieur de Bertrange (Grand-Duché de Luxembourg)1
- Late Triassic and early Jurassic biostratigraphy of the Felixkirk Borehole, North Yorkshire1
- Unterlias der Czorstyner Schichtfolge bei Brvniste im Vahtale und seine Fauna (Klippen Zone, Westslowakei)1
- The Lower Jurassic Rocks of East Greenland Part II The Mesozoic Sediments of the Kap Hope Area Southern Liverpool Land1
- I fossili del Lias inferiore di Saltrio in Lombardia1
Each of the 145 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 Gryphaea arcuata
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- H. Zell
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution-NonCommercial
- Commercial use
- the licence does not allow it
Smithsonian Open Access was 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 itGryphaea through timeFormations of the Early JurassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Lamarck 1801