Whiteavesia

Classification
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Bivalvia
Order: Modiomorphida
Family: Modiomorphidae
Genus: Whiteavesia Ulrich, 1893
Cincinnatian Species: Whiteavesia cincinnatiensis

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Geologic Range
Middle Ordovician – Late Ordovician

Common Paleoecology
Whiteavesia is an extinct genus of stationary epifaunal suspension feeders

Identification in Hand Sample:

Geographic Occurrences

Species Differentiation

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Zong-Jie & Cope (2004) (in reference to Pojeta, Jr. 1971):

  • The faint tracks of radial ornaments also exist in the flank of the genus Whiteavesia, but these tracks are frequently too weak to be readily discernible.

Pojeta, Jr. & Runnegar (1985):

  • The genus Whiteavesia is difficult to classify because it has the general shape of modiomorphids, but the rugose and radial ornament of pholadomyoids; on the basis of the known specimens, it is not possible to tell whether the radial ornament of Whiteavesia is beaded.

Pojeta, Jr. (1971):

  • Details of the shell musculature are not so well known in Whiteavesia and Colpomya, however, in shell shape, they suggest byssally attached mytilaceans.
  • Based on shell shape and general hard-part morphology such Ordovician modiomorphids as Modiolopsis, Modiolodon, Whiteavesia, and less well known genera such as Pholadomorpha are strongly reminiscent of the geologically younger modioliform mytilaceans.

Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part N, Mollusca 6(1 of 3) (1969):

  • Lateral sulcus and ventral sinus absent, interior marked by fine radial ridges which may reflect fine external ornamentation; hinge edentulous (?).

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W. cincinnatiensis