The Genus Antemetula Rehder in the Indo-Westpacific Area, with the Description of Two New Fossil Species

Abstract

Rehder (1943: 199) pointed out, that Buccinum clathratum Adams & Reeve, 1848, is the type of the genus Metula H.& A. Adams, 1858. For the species congeneric with Buccinum metula Hinds, 1844, he proposed the generic name Antemetula, with that species as the type. Bucchium metula was described by Hinds from a specimen dredged by the Sulphur off the West coast of Veragua, at a depth of a few fathoms. There are no other records of the species from the American West coast. Smith (1904: 465) called attention to the fact that young specimens of Buccinum mitrella Adams & Reeve, 1848, match Hinds’s figure of B. metula. B. mitrella was described from one or more specimens dredged by the Samarang in the China Sea, at a depth of 10 fathoms, and has been recorded since from some more localities in the Indo-Westpacific area. Smith thought B. mitrella to be a synonym of B. metula, and the type locality of the latter possibly erroneous. It is, indeed, unlikely that a benthonic prosobranch inhabiting the West coast of America between the tropics will also occur in the Indo-Westpacific area, because the eastern Pacific barrier is practically insurmountable for littoral species, as Ekman (1935: 105—107) has shown. If therefore Smith’s opinion, that B. mitrella is a synonym of B. metula be right, the type locality mentioned by Hinds must be wrong. The Sulphur dredged in the China Sea also, and therefore it seems possible that material from that sea was confounded with shells from the American West coast.