''Gigantostrea'' is an extinct genus of

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 ...

mollusk Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is e ...

s belonging to the family

Gryphaeidae The Gryphaeidae, common name the foam oysters or honeycomb oysters, are a family of marine bivalve mollusks. This family of bivalves is very well represented in the fossil record, however the number of living species is very few. All species ...

. This genus is known in the fossil record from the

Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene' ...

to the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

(age range: from 48.6 to 15.97 million years ago). These fossils have been found in Europe and United States.

Description

Shells of ''Gigantostrea'' can reach a size of about .International Fossil Shells Museum
/ref> These fossil shells are brittle, inequivalve, with the lower valve convex and the upper valve flat or slightly concave. The lower valve was cemented to the substrate.

Species

Species within this genus include:Fossilworks
/ref> * †''Gigantostrea gigantica'' Solander in Brander 1766 * †''Gigantostrea trigonalis'' Conrad 1854

References

External links

Album-fossile
Eocene genus first appearances Miocene genus extinctions Prehistoric bivalve genera {{bivalve-stub