Protocardia
Searched as Protocardia (Protocardia) cf. goradongarensis. The Paleobiology Database treats Protocardia as the accepted name.
Protocardia is an extinct genus of saltwater clams, marine bivalve mollusks in the subfamily Protocardiinae of the family Cardiidae, the cockles.

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
- ProtocardiinaePBDB
- Diet
- suspension feederPBDB, for Cardiidae
- Life habit
- infaunalPBDB, for Cardiidae
- Motility
- facultatively mobilePBDB, for Cardiidae
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
Time the record covers
At most 3.8 million years on record.
The one occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 165.3 Mya and 161.5 Mya, which is a dating window rather than a span.
1 occurrence of Protocardia on record, most of them in the Middle 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
1 occurrences- Middle Jurassic100%
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
1 formation
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The named rock units Protocardia has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.
Protocardia and its relatives
Middle JurassicWhere Protocardia and its relatives were recorded in the Middle Jurassic.
Found in the same rock
1,343 taxa- Serpula67 sites
- Camptonectes56 sites
- Cyprimeria56 sites
- Modiolus56 sites
- Nuculana56 sites
- Astarte54 sites
- Exogyra (Exogyra) costata54 sites
- Granocardium54 sites
- Isocyprina54 sites
- Pleuromya uniformis52 sites
- Veniella conradi52 sites
- Crassatella vadosa51 sites
- Syncyclonema47 sites
- Camptonectes bubonis44 sites
- Crenella serica44 sites
- Idonearca capax44 sites
- Anomia argentaria43 sites
- Cymbophora43 sites
- Isognomon43 sites
- Linearis41 sites
- Pseudolimea reticulata41 sites
- Grammatodon40 sites
- Nanogyra (Nanogyra) nana40 sites
- Liopistha protexta39 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 984 sites for Protocardia, and this reads 240 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
1 referenceEach of the 1 occurrence 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 content2

Picture of Protocardia
- Source
- iDigBio
- Credit
- via iDigBio
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Credit
- Shellie Luallin
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
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, “Protocardia”
- 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 itProtocardiinae through timeFormations of the Middle JurassicThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Beyrich 1845)