Abstract. To re-evaluate the relationships of the major bivalve lineages, we amassed detailed morpho-anatomical, ultrastructural and molecular sequence data for a targeted selection of exemplar bivalves spanning the phylogenetic diversity of the class. We included molecular data for 103 bivalve species (up to five markers) and also analysed a subset of taxa with four additional nuclear protein-encoding genes. Novel as well as historically employed morphological characters were explored, and we systematically disassembled widely used descriptors such as gill and stomach 'types'. Phylogenetic analyses, conducted using parsimony direct optimisation and probabilistic methods on static alignments (maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference) of the molecular data, both alone and in combination with morphological characters, offer a robust test of bivalve relationships. A calibrated phylogeny also provided insights into the tempo of bivalve evolution. Finally, an analysis of the informativeness of morphological characters showed that sperm ultrastructure characters are among the best morphological features to diagnose bivalve clades, followed by characters of the shell, including its microstructure. Our study found support for monophyly of most broadly recognised higher bivalve taxa, although support was not uniform for Protobranchia. However, monophyly of the bivalves with protobranchiate gills was the best-supported hypothesis with incremental morphological and/or molecular sequence data. Autobranchia,

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The evolutionary relationships of the Recent Pterioidea are inferred from a phylogenetic analysis of representatives of all pterioidean genera based on original observations of anatomy and shell morphology, and an extensive survey of bivalve literature. The well‐resolved cladogram supports monophyly for the superfamily, but renders all but one family (the monotypic Pulvinitidae) polyphyletic. In addition, these results reveal a considerable level of convergence and parallelisms through the Pterioidea. The branching order of pterioid genera in the morphological analysis is largely corroborated by the sequence of their appearance in the fossil record. The palaeontological evidence provides important information on dating lineage splitting events and transitional taxa. The proposed phylogeny integrates the cladistic analysis of the Recent Pterioidea with the fossil record and suggests that the crown‐group pterioideans probably originated in the Triassic from the Bakevelliidae, an extinct paraphyletic stem group from which the Ostreoidea are also ultimately derived. © 2006 The Linnean Society of London, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2006, 148, 253–312.