Because of their large size and pronounced ornament, fossil trigoniid bivalves have long attracted interest.
Jean Guillaume Bruguiere was the first person to describe an example of
Trigonia in 1789.
Lamarck later figured specimens from the
Oxfordian of
France. In
England the
physician James Parkinson (the discoverer of
Parkinson's disease) described examples of
Trigonia and
Myophorella. Later,
James Sowerby and
James De Carle Sowerby began to catalogue
British examples in earnest.
Etheldred Benett added several
Upper Jurassic species, although her work was not primarily recognised due to the academic status of women at that time. In 1840 Europe,
Louis Agassiz published a large volume entitled
Memoire sur les Trigonies which recognised the large variation encountered within the family, dividing it into eight sections, which was a precursor to the generic
classification that occurred some fifty years later. Other notable workers that described and figured trigoniids include
Friedrich August von Quenstedt,
Alcide d'Orbigny and
Georg August Goldfuss. The major worker on the Trigoniidae in the nineteenth century was
John Lycett, a physician from
Gloucestershire who published a text entitled
A Monograph of British Fossil Trigoniae.
Later research - the twentieth century Work on the Trigoniidae has generally been sparse in the 20th century and has mainly concentrated upon the development towards a workable
taxonomy. Today, knowledge is sufficient to divide the family into five
Subfamilies (see below), which together contain more than sixteen genera, the most abundant being
Trigonia,
Myophorella,
Laevitrigonia, and
Orthotrigonia.
Higher level taxonomy '' from the
Portland Limestone (
Upper Jurassic),
Isle of Portland, Dorset, England • Family Trigoniidae •
Subfamily Trigoniinae •
Trigonia •
Neotrigonia - the only living genus •
Agonisca •
Maoritrigonia •
Praegonia •
Minetrigonia • ?
Pseudomyophorella • Subfamily
Prosogyrotrigoniinae •
Prosogyrotrigonia •
Prorotrigonia • Subfamily
Psilotrogoniinae •
Psilotrigonia • Subfamily
Myophorellinae •
Frenguilellella •
Jaworskiella •
Myophorella •
Vaugonia •
Orthotrigonia •
Scaphotrigonia • Subfamily
Laevitrigoniinae •
Laevitrigonia • ?
Liotrigonia ==Family characteristics==