Pteria sterna

Pteria sterna, or commonly known as the rainbow-lipped pearl oyster or the Pacific wing-oyster, is a species of marine bivalve mollusk in the family Pteriidae, the pearl oysters. This oyster can be found in shallow water along the tropical and subtropical Pacific coast of America, its range including Baja California, Mexico and northern Peru.

Pteria sterna

Uncredited · 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
PteriaPBDB
Diet
suspension feederPBDB, for Pteria
Life habit
epifaunalPBDB, for Pteria
Motility
stationary, attachedPBDB, for Pteria
Vision
blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
Environment
coastal,inner shelf,outer shelf,oceanicPBDB, for Pteriidae

Time the record covers

At least 15 million years on record.

The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.

Oligocene — about 0 of 3 occurrencesMiocene — about 1 of 3 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 0 of 3 occurrencesPleistocene — about 2 of 3 occurrencesPleistocene24–23 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences785 ka–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences15.98 Mya129 ka23.5 Mya0 Mya

3 occurrences of Pteria sterna 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

3 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

Pacific Muck — 8.93°N, 79.56°WVaqueros — 33.94°N, 120.06°W

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The named rock units Pteria sterna has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Pteria sterna and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Pteria sterna and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

169 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 3 sites for Pteria sterna, 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

3 references

Each of the 3 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 the Paleobiology Database's own record for the work.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Pteria sterna

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

No 3D scan of Pteria sterna 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 itPteria through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Gould 1851)