Wallowaconcha raylenea
| Wallowaconcha raylenea | ||||||||||||
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| Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
| North to Upper Triassic | ||||||||||||
| approx. 217 to 204 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Wallowaconcha raylenea | ||||||||||||
| Yancey & Stanley , 1999 |
Wallowaconcha raylenea from the family of the Wallowaconchidae is a large, very specialized mussel from the order of the Rudists (Hippuritoida). Wallowaconcha raylenea lived in Oregon (USA) at the time of the Nor ( Upper Triassic ).
features
The edge parts of the housing are extended like a wing. These wing-like extensions are divided into chambers by partition walls, which, however, were connected to one another. The lock is designed as a wide lock plate containing one or two thick cardinal teeth that are roughly parallel to the lock axis. There is also a deep cardinal pit on each valve, but this does not appear until the adult stage.
Way of life
The Wallowaconchidae lived on the sediment. Due to the wing-like distribution of the housing, they could lie on the soft sediment without sinking into the sediment (“snowshoe principle”). The poorly developed sphincter muscles and large, heavy shells suggest that the Wallowaconchidae lived in symbiosis with chemosynthetic bacteria or endosymbiotic bacteria. They lived in groups on the ocean floor.
Occurrence
So far the Wallowaconchidae are only known from a few places in Oregon (USA). They were believed to have been endemic to some of the island- arc terrans of western North America. They occur in Yukon (Canada) (Stikine Terran), Oregon (USA) (Wallowa Terran) and in Sonora (Mexico) (Antimonio Terran). So far they have been limited to the north in the Upper Triassic .
literature
- ET Yancey & GD Stanley: Giant alatoform bivalves in the Upper Triassic of Western North America . Palaeontology, 42: 1-23, London 1999 ISSN 0031-0239
- Michael Amler, Rudolf Fischer & Nicole Rogalla: Mussels . Haeckel library, volume 5. Enke Verlag, Stuttgart 2000 ISBN 3-13-118391-8 .