Saccella taphria

Dall, 1897 · CC0 · via Wikidata/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
- furrowed nutclamPBDB
- Sits inside
- SaccellaPBDB
- Diet
- deposit feederPBDB, for Saccella
- Life habit
- shallow infaunalPBDB, for Saccella
- Motility
- facultatively mobilePBDB, for Saccella
- Vision
- blindPBDB, for Bivalvia
- Environment
- coastal,inner shelf,outer shelf,oceanicPBDB, for Nuculanidae
Time the record covers
At least 5.2 million years on record.
The record covers at least 5.333 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 11.63 Mya to 11.7 ka.
116 occurrences of Saccella taphria 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
116 occurrences- Miocene2%
- Pliocene32%
- Pleistocene66%
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
17 formations
- Careaga Sandstone Formation25
- Pico Formation19
- Palos Verdes Sand Formation13
- Towsley Formation10
- Timms Point Silt Formation10
- San Pedro Sand Formation4
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The named rock units Saccella taphria has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 16 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Saccella taphria and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Saccella taphria and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
1,239 taxa- Turritella cooperi42 sites
- Glossaulax reclusiana40 sites
- Callianax biplicata29 sites
- Mitrella gausapata29 sites
- Cryptomya californica27 sites
- Panopea generosa27 sites
- Californiconus californicus26 sites
- Lucinoma annulata26 sites
- Solen sicarius26 sites
- Caesia perpinguis25 sites
- Mitrella tuberosa25 sites
- Dallocardia quadragenarium24 sites
- Dentalium neohexagonum24 sites
- Acteocina culcitella22 sites
- Lucinisca nuttalli22 sites
- Tresus nuttallii22 sites
- Megasurcula carpenteriana21 sites
- Caesia moraniana20 sites
- Callithaca tenerrima20 sites
- Crepidula nummaria20 sites
- Lirobittium rugatum20 sites
- Calliostoma canaliculatum19 sites
- Macoma (Rexithaerus) indentata19 sites
- Paciocinebrina lurida19 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 100 sites for Saccella taphria, and this reads all 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
33 references- Geology and paleontology of the Santa Maria District California25
- Geology of southeastern Ventura basin, Los Angeles County, California15
- Early Pliocene marine climate and environment of the eastern Ventura Basin, Southern California8
- The Paleontology and Stratigraphy of the Marine Pliocene and Pleistocene of San Pedro, California8
- The paleontology of the Pleistocene molluscan fauna of the Newport Bay area, California7
- The cool-water Timms Point Pleistocene horizon at San Pedro, California7
- Late Pliocene megafossils of the Pico Formation, Newhall area, Los Angeles County, Southern California4
- Late Pleistocene Invertebrates from Punta Cabras, Baja California, Mexico4
- Late Pleistocene invertebrates of the Newport Bay area, California3
- Catalogue of the Marine Pliocene and Pleistocene Mollusca of California3
- On the reconciliation of biostratigraphy and strontium isotope stratigraphy of three southern Californian Plio-Pleistocene formations2
- Age and paleoenvironmental significance of mega-invertebrates from the "San Pedro" Formation in the Coyote Hills, Fullerton and Buena Park, Orange County, Southern California2
Each of the 116 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. 21 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 content1

Picture of Saccella taphria
- Source
- Wikidata/Commons
- Credit
- Dall, 1897
- Licence
- CC0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Saccella taphria was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itSaccella through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Dall 1896)