''Naiadites'' is an extinct genus of thin-shelled non-marine
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, biva ...
from the
Upper Carboniferous coal-measures of
Nova Scotia in
Canada.
Species
The genus contains the following species:
*''Naiadites carbonarius'' from the Pennsylvanian (Upper Carboniferous) of Nova Scotia in Canada
*''Naiadites orhallensis'' from the Carboniferous of
Germany
*''Naiadites phillipsi'' from the Westphalian B–C (Lower–Middle Pennsylvanian) of the Ruhr area in western Germany
*''Naiadites devonicus''
[SCHOLTZ, S. & GESS, R. (2017). Oldest known naiaditid bivalve from the high-latitude
Late Devonian (Famennian) of South Africa offers clues to survival strategies
following the Hangenberg mass extinction. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology,
Palaeoecology 471, 31–39.] from the Late Devonian of South Africa
''N. orhallensis'' has been described as occurring in dense colonies attached to floating or submerged stems of terrestrial plant wrack.
''Naiadites'' form Devonicus, known only from the
Waterloo Farm lagerstätte
The Waterloo Farm lagerstätte is a Famennian lagerstätte in South Africa that constitutes the only known record of a near-polar Devonian coastal ecosystem.
History and discovery
The Waterloo Farm Lagerstätte is an approximately 360 millio ...
deposit, constitutes the dominant preserved aquatic invertebrate therein, with hundreds of valves having been collected, generally ranging between 10 and 25 mm in length. The palaeoenvironment has been interpreted as being a fresh to brackish water habitat within the palaeoantarctic circle. As this is the earliest known ''Naiadites'', Scholtz and Gess have suggested that it may have spread to lower latitudes following the End Devonian Mass Extinction in response to global cooling, suggesting an origin for post extinction taxa appearing at low palaeolatitudes during the early Carboniferous.
[ Gess and Whitfield have suggested that ''Naiadites'' form Devonicus lived attached to the abundant submerged and floating vegetation at Waterloo Farm. Probably concentrated where river(s) entered the estuarine lake carrying suspended particulate organic matter they were likely rafted on floating vegetation into more saline portions of the system and would have provided an important food source for predatory fishes.][Gess, Robert W. and Whitfield Alan K. (2020). "Estuarine fish and tetrapod evolution: Insights from a Late Devonian (Famennian) Gondwanan estuarine lake and a southern African Holocene equivalent". Biological Reviews. doi:10.1111/brv.12590. ]
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q102799731
Pteriida
Prehistoric bivalve genera