Athleta rarispina (Lamarck, 1811)

Taxonomy

Volute Snail

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
Order: Neogastropoda
Family: Volutidae
Genus: Athleta
Species: Athleta rarispina
Author Citation Lamarck (1811)

Geological Time Scale

Eon: Phanerozoic
Era: Cenozoic
Period: Neogene
Sub Period: None
Epoch: Miocene
International Age: Langhian

Stratigraphy

unknown formation
Florianer Schichten

Provenance

Collector: Franz Bernhard
Date Collected: 11/23/2016
Acquired by: Field Collection

Dimensions

Length: 33 mm

Location

Höllerkogel Hill
St. Josef
Styria
Austria

• 2885
• athleta rarispina
• austria
• badenian
• eastern alps
• florianer schichten
• langhian
• miocene
• styria
• styrian basin

Comments

Volute snail Athleta rarispina on matrix. Note the very well preserved borings of an unknown organism. Exact locality is Höllerkogel-18 in my own documentation. It is a tiny outcrop (about 1-2 square meters) in a densely wooded, very steep area southwest of St. Josef, Styria, Austria. This small outcrop, composed of a medium grained, quartz-rich, somewhat limonitic sand yielded, from November 2016 to May 2018, at least 80 species of gastropods and bivalves and is far from exhausted. Most of the fossils are characterized by a partial limonitic staining and usually a very good preservation. The species A. rarispina is moderately abundant in this outcrop.

 

The sediments in the area belong to the "Florianer Schichten", which are part of the western Styrian basin at the eastern margin of the Alps.

The "Florianer Schichten" are about 15 Ma old (Langhian, or "Badenian" in Paratethys stratigraphic terms).