Revision of Ostrea (Gigantostrea) gigantica Solander var. oligoplana Sacco and Ostrea (Ostrea) isseli Rovereto (Oligocene, Tertiary Piedmont Basin, NW Italy)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is the revision and redocumentation of Ostrea (Gigantostrea) gigantica Solander var. oligoplana Sacco, 1897, Ostrea (Ostrea) isseli n. denom. Rovereto, 1897, and Ostrea (Ostrea) isseli n. denom. var. elongata Rovereto, 1897. These taxa are from the Oligocene strata of the Molare Formation (Tertiary Piedmont Basin, southern Piedmont - central Liguria, NW Italy). The syntypes of O. (G.) gigantica var. oligoplana are in the "Collezione Bellardi e Sacco", at the Museo Regionale di Scienze Naturali di Torino; the syntypes of O. (O.) isseli and O. (O.) isseli var. elongata are in the "Collezione BTP" (BTP Collection, at the Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, dell'Ambiente e della Vita - DISTAV - of the Università di Genova). The var. oligoplana is here moved to the species rank and allocated to the genus Pycnodonte Fischer von Waldheim, 1835. O. (O.) isseli and O. (O.) isseli var. elongata are recognized as junior synonyms of the Sacco's taxon. Rovereto (1897) compared his new species with Ostrea subgigantea Raulin & Delbos, 1855, a poorly known taxon, that is here figured for the first time and shown to represent a species different from P. oligoplana (Sacco, 1897).