TELLINIDAE DE BLAINVILLE, 1814

Charles L. Powell, Ii, Clites, Erica C. & Poust, Ashley W., 2019, Miocene marine macropaleontology of the fourth bore Caldecott Tunnel excavation, Berkeley Hills, Oakland, California, USA, PaleoBios 36, pp. 1-34 : 11

TELLINIDAE DE BLAINVILLE, 1814

A single incomplete specimen (UCMP 218708) measuring ~3.5 cm long and 2.9 cm high, is tentatively identified here as aff. Tellinidae based on its size and shape. The hinge is needed to differentiate the genera Macoma and Tellina , so without the hinge our specimen is referred only to family. The family Tellinidae is wide ranging in the original author of Vesicomya stearnsii . However, in footnotes on page 693 is a histologic description attributed to, in part, Callocardia stearsii , within a discussion of Euciron pacifica Dall (pp. 688–697). According to Coan et al. (2000, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Monographs 2, Studies in Biodiversity 2, p. 338) under Vesicomya (Vesicomya) stearnsii and an email from P. Valentich-Scott (7/2018) confirms use of the name is sufficient to establish the author and date. Fossil Pliocardia are only questionably known from western North America ( Amano and Kiel 2007) they are not recognized with certainty because the hinge has not been preserved; however, they do occur in eastern Asia ( Amano and Kiel 2012). All northeastern Pacific vesicomyids and perhaps all species in the family are filter feeders commonly found at cold seeps and in sulfide-rich habitats (e.g., Barry et al. 1997) at water depths greater than about 500 m in the eastern Pacific ( Coan et al. 2000).