''Glossus'' is a genus of mostly extinct

marine Marine is an adjective meaning of or pertaining to the sea or ocean. Marine or marines may refer to: Ocean * Maritime (disambiguation) * Marine art * Marine biology * Marine debris * Marine habitats * Marine life * Marine pollution Military * ...

bivalve Bivalvia (), in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class of marine and freshwater molluscs that have laterally compressed bodies enclosed by a shell consisting of two hinged parts. As a group, bival ...

molluscs in the family Glossidae. Only the oxheart clam, '' G. humanus'', is still

extant Extant is the opposite of the word extinct. It may refer to: * Extant hereditary titles * Extant literature, surviving literature, such as ''Beowulf'', the oldest extant manuscript written in English * Extant taxon, a taxon which is not extinct, ...

, living in flat, muddy regions deep off the North Atlantic coastline of Europe.

Fossil records

All species of this genus, including the remaining extant species, ''G. humanus'', are found in the fossil record from the Cretaceous to the Pliocene (age range: from 99.7 to 2.588 million years ago). Fossils are found in the marine strata of Eastern

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

, Eurasia and the Indo-Pacific.

Species

The following species and synonmised taxa are (or have been) classified under ''Glossus'': * '' Glossus bronni'' * '' Glossus conradi'' Gabb, 1860 (=''Isocarida conradi'') * †'' Glossus fraterna'' Say, 1824 * '' Glossus harpa'' * ''

Glossus humanus ''Glossus humanus'', the oxheart clam, is a species of species of marine clam found in deepwater off the Atlantic coastline of Europe and Northern Africa. It is the only remaining extant species in the genus '' Glossus''. Description ''Glossu ...

'' ( Linnaeus,

1758 Events January–March * January 1 – Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus (Carl von Linné) publishes in Stockholm the first volume (''Animalia'') of the 10th edition of Systema Naturae, 10th edition of ''Systema Naturae'', the sta ...

) * '' Glossus cyprinoides'' * '' Glossus lamarckii'' * '' Glossus lunulatus'' * †'' Glossus markoei'' Conrad, 1842 * †'' Glossus marylandica'' Schoonover, 1941 * †'' Glossus mazlea'' Glenn, 1904 * '' Glossus moltkiana'' * '' Glossus sanguineomaculata'' * †'' Glossus santamaria'' Ward, 1992 * '' Glossus subtransversus'' * '' Glossus vulgaris'' Reeve, 1845 ;Synonyms * ''Glossus rubicundus'' Poli, 1795 accepted as ''Glossus humanus'' Linnaeus,

* ''Glossus hibernicus'' Reeve, 1845 is a regional variant of ''Glossus humanus'' Linnaeus,

Bibliography

* G. Owen - On The Biology Of Glossus Humanus (L.) (Isocardia Cor Lam.
Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom
* Huber M. (2010) Compendium of bivalves. A full-color guide to 3,300 of the world's marine bivalves. A status on Bivalvia after 250 years of research. Hackenheim: ConchBooks. 901 pp., 1 * Guido Poppe und Yoshihiro Goto: ''European Seashells Volume 2 (Scaphopoda, Bivalvia, Cephalopoda)''. 221 S., Verlag Christa Hemmen, Wiesbaden 1993 (2000 unv. Nachdruck)

References

Glossidae Bivalve genera Taxa named by Giuseppe Saverio Poli {{bivalve-stub