Lithophaga

Searched as Lithophaga poolii. The Paleobiology Database treats Lithophaga as the accepted name.

Lithophaga, the date mussels, are a genus of medium-sized marine bivalve molluscs in the family Mytilidae. Some of the earliest fossil Lithophaga shells have been found in Mesozoic rocks from the Alps and from Vancouver Island.

Lithophaga

GrahamBould · 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
MytilidaePBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB
Life habit
boringPBDB
Motility
stationaryPBDB
Vision
blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
Environment
lagoonal,coastal,inner shelf,outer shelf,oceanic,brackish,freshwaterPBDB, for Mytilidae

Time the record covers

At most 17 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 346.7 Mya and 330.3 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Carboniferous — about 2 of 2 occurrencesCarboniferous347–347 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences347–346 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences346–345 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences345–345 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences345–344 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences344–344 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences344–343 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences343–343 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences343–342 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences342–341 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences341–341 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences341–340 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences340–340 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences340–339 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences339–339 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences339–338 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences338–337 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences337–337 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences337–336 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences336–336 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences336–335 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences335–334 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences334–334 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences334–333 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences333–333 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences333–332 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences332–332 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences332–331 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences331–330 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences330–330 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences347.2 Mya329.8 Mya

2 occurrences of Lithophaga on record, most of them in the Carboniferous. 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

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

Miller Creek and Wentworth Station — 45.02°N, 64.06°WMurphy Road — 45.01°N, 64.13°W

Loading coastlines…

The named rock units Lithophaga has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Lithophaga and its relatives

Carboniferous

Where Lithophaga and its relatives were recorded in the Carboniferous.

Found in the same rock

3,580 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 481 sites for Lithophaga, and this reads 240 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

1 reference

Each 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 Lithophaga

Credit
GrahamBould
Licence
Public Domain
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Lithophaga 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 itMytilidae through timeFormations of the CarboniferousThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Röding 1798