First record of the Caribbean genus Cittarium (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Trochidae) from the Oligocene of Europe and its paleobiogeographic implications

Abstract

The West Indian Top-shell, Cittarium pica (Linnaeus, 1758), is a very classic and common species of the Caribbean faunal province. Until now the only known fossil occurrence of Cittarium pica, and of the genus Cittarium, is from Pleistocene deposits restricted to the Caribbean province (Clench and Abbott, 1943). Despite the turbiniform shell, the monotypic genus Cittarium belongs to the family Trochidae and was assigned to the tribe Gibbilini Stoliczka, 1868 by Hickman and McLean (1990). This paper reports a new species of Cittarium and the only record outside the Caribbean province. More than twenty million years separate the single modern species of Cittarium and the new fossil species. All material collected is deposited in Museum national d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris (MNHN).