Ostreida
The order Ostreida includes the true oysters. One superfamily (Ostreoidea) and two extant families are recognised within it. The two families are Ostreidae, the true oysters, and Gryphaeidae, the foam oysters.

No machine-readable author provided. BetacommandBot assumed (based on copyright claims). · 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- Also called
- oysterPBDB
- Sits inside
- PteriomorphiaPBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB
- Life habit
- epifaunalPBDB
- Motility
- stationary, attachedPBDB
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
- Environment
- marine,brackishPBDB
Time the record covers
At least 457 million years on record.
The record covers at least 457.2 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 463.3 Mya to 0 Mya.
12,000+ occurrences of Ostreida on record. 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
12,000 occurrences read- Ordovicianunder 1%
- Silurian2%
- Devonian6%
- Carboniferous2%
- Permian2%
- Early Triassicunder 1%
- Middle Triassic5%
- Late Triassic6%
- Early Jurassic11%
- Middle Jurassic8%
- Late Jurassic12%
- Early Cretaceous6%
- Late Cretaceous26%
- Paleocene2%
- Eocene5%
- Oligocene2%
- Miocene3%
- Pliocene1%
- Pleistoceneunder 1%
- Holoceneunder 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. The read hit its cap, so every figure above is a floor and the shares are of the occurrences read. More on what this infers.
Found in
at least 1051 formations
- Prairie Bluff Formation375
- Qingyan Formation303
- Corsicana Marl Formation290
- Dhruma Formation · Shaqra Group277
- Tataouine Formation192
- Woodbine Formation186
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The named rock units Ostreida has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. The read hit its cap, so each count is a floor. 1,027 further formations hold fewer occurrences each and are not listed. 2,755 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
1,840 taxa- Pycnodonte vesicularis54 sites
- Nuculana52 sites
- Pterinea41 sites
- Granocardium36 sites
- Dhondtichlamys35 sites
- Lyriochlamys35 sites
- Nucula35 sites
- Spondylus34 sites
- Inoceramus33 sites
- Modiolus33 sites
- Cyprimeria32 sites
- Panopea32 sites
- Aphrodina31 sites
- Crinoidea30 sites
- Ambigostrea29 sites
- Lingula29 sites
- Nuculites29 sites
- Syncyclonema29 sites
- Camarotoechia27 sites
- Cymbophora27 sites
- Leptaena27 sites
- Pseudolimea27 sites
- Pleuriocardia26 sites
- Pterotrigonia (Scabrotrigonia)26 sites
The Paleobiology Database records at least 839 sites for Ostreida, 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
at least 852 references- Unpublished data859
- Unpublished data on Cretaceous-Paleocene molluscan assemblages608
- Upper Cretaceous (Maestrichtian) Mollusca from the Haustator bilira Assemblage Zone in the East Gulf Coastal Plain493
- Palokologie und zeitliche Verbreitung benthischer Faunengemeinschaften im Unterjura von Chile425
- Upper Cretaceous (Maestrichtian) larger invertebrate Fossils from the Haustator bilira Assemblage Zone in the west gulf Coastal Plain385
- Le Jurassique D`Arabie Centrale329
- Upper Cretaceous (Maestrichtian) larger invertebrates from the Haustator bilira Assemblage Zone in the Atlantic Coastal Plain with further data for the East Gulf239
- Palökologie benthischer Faunen aus dem Unter-Toarc SW-Europas220
- The paleoecology of the Cenomanian-Turonian (Cretaceous) stage boundary extinctions at Black Mesa, Arizona219
- Fossilvergesellschaftungen, Paläoökologie und paläosynökologische Entwicklung im Oberen Anisium (Mittlere Trias) von Qingyan, insbesondere Bangtoupo, Provinz Guizhou, Südwestchina218
- A systematic survey of the Mesozoic Bivalvia from Japan209
- Palökologie benthischer Faunengemeinschaften und Taxonomie der Bivalven im Jura von Südtunesien206
Each of the 12,000 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. That read hit its cap, so each count is a floor. 840 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 content2
Picture of Ostreida
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- No machine-readable author provided. BetacommandBot assumed (based on copyright claims).
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- APEX UniLaSalle
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Ostreida”
- 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 itPteriomorphia through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Fërussac 1822