Bridging the gap between the eastern Atlantic and eastern Pacific: A new species ofCrassadoma(Bivalvia: Pectinidae) in the Pliocene of Florida

Abstract

Crassadoma monroensisnew species (Mollusca: Bivalvia: Pectinidae), from the lower upper Pliocene Ochopee Limestone Member of the Tamiami Formation of southern Florida, is the first undoubted member of the genusCrassadomaBernard, 1986, to be discovered in the Neogene on the eastern side of the Americas. The new species was likely byssate, not cemented, and fills the geographic gap between ancestral members of the tribe Crassadomini in the eastern Atlantic andCrassadoma gigantea,the giant cemented species that lives along the western shores of North America.