Gastropods Of The Pinecrest Sand

[MikeR]

I was going to post the next family, Naticidae, in my gallery on the gastropods of the Tamiami Formation however I decided to post new additions to families previously uploaded from a somewhat recent trip to a new site for me in the Golden Gate Member of the Tamiami Formation, Lee County, Florida.  One is of a much better preserved specimen of Cerithium preatratum and two new additions to the Family Strombidae:  Lobatus leidyi and Lobatus williamsi.  With these additions as well as a name correction to a previously posted specimen, the Family Strombidae in the gallery stands as follows:

 

Phylum Mollusca

     Class Gastropoda

          Order Littorinimorpha

               Family Strombidae

                    Strombus floridanus  Mansfield, 1930

                    Strombus sarasotaensis Petuch, 1994

                    Lobatus hertweckorum (Petuch, 1991)

                    Lobatus mulepenensis (Petuch, 1994)

                    Lobatus cf. gigas (Linneaus, 1758)

                    Lobatus williamsi (Olsson & Petit, 1964)

                    Lobatus leidyi (Heilprin, 1886)

 

The gallery can be found in its entirety with this link  Gastropods of the Tamiami Formation

 

Enjoy!

 

Mike

[MikeR]

I finally completed my upload of the family Naticidae aka the Moon Snails.  The family ranges world-wide from tiny to quite large and prey on other mollusks.  They secrete an acid in conjunction with a radula boring a countersunk looking hole in its shelled prey ripping out chunks of any mollusk unfortunate to be caught.  Tropical/Subtropical naticid faunas can be very diverse as demonstrated by that of Tamiami Formation. 

They can be found in my Tamiami Gastropod Gallery.

Enyoy

 

Mike

 

Phylum Mollusca

Class Gastropoda

Order Littorinimorpha

Family Naticidae

Dallitesta coensis (Dall, 1903)

Euspira perspectivia (Rogers & Rogers, 1837)

Naticarius cf. carena (Linne, 1758)

Naticarius castrenoides (Woodring, 1928)

Naticarius plicatella (Conrad, 1863)

Neverita duplicata (Say, 1822)

Polinices caroliniana (Conrad, 1841)

Sigatica bathyora (Woodring, 1928)

Sinum perspectium (Say, 1831)

Sinum polandi M. Smith, 1936

Stigmaulax guppiana (Toula, 1909)

Stigmaulax polypum Olsson & Harbison, 1953

Tectonatica pusilla (Say, 1822)

 

[Shellseeker]

Thanks for all you do, Mike I love the variety, the photos , the presentation. Very professional!! Jack

[Coco]

Hi,

 

I agree !

 

Coco

[Plantguy]

Thanks Mike! 

 

Regards, Chris 

[MikeR]

After a year hiatus, I am back to posting images of gastropods in my gallery.  Before I add new families I am starting with some additions to those families already shown.  In Calliostomidae I have changed the only species previously posted from C. mitchelli pontoni to C. willcoxianum and added four additional species. I have also added one additional species to Potamididae and one to Strombidae.  The list in these families in my collection are now as follows:

 

Phylum Mollusca

     Class Gastropoda

          Order Trochida

               Family Calliostomidae

                    Calliostoma euconulum Olsson & Harbinson, 1953

                    Calliostoma jujuconulum Olsson & Harbinson, 1953

                    Calliostoma mitchelli philanthropus (Conrad, 1834)

                    Calliostoma cf. pulchrum (C.B. Adams, 1850)

                    Calliostoma willcoxianum Dall, 1892

          Order Littorinimorph

               Family Potamididae

                    Cerithidea diegelae Petuch, 1994

                    Cerithidea lindae Petuch, 1994

                    Potamides cancelloides Aldrich, 1911

                    Pyrazisinus kissimmeensis (Olsson, 1967)

                    Pyrazisinus lindae Petuch, 1994

                    Pyrazisinus scalatus (Heilprin, 1886)

                    Pyrazisinus scalinus Olsson, 1967

               Family Strombidae

                    Strombus floridanus Mansfield, 1930

                    Strombus cf. pugilis (Linnaeus, 1758)

                    Strombus sarasotaensis Petuch, 1994

                    Lobatus hertweckorum (Petuch, 1991)

                    Lobatus mulepenensis (Petuch, 1994)

                    Lobatus cf. gigas (Linneaus, 1758)

                    Lobatus williamsi (Olsson & Petit, 1964)

                    Lobatus leidyi (Heilprin, 1886)

 

Images can be seen in my gallery Gastropods of the Tamiami Formation.

 

 

[MikeR]

I have uploaded new images of gastropod species to my Tamiami gallery.  There are two new additions to families that I have previously posted; Gelasinostoma elegantula to Turbinidae and Vermicularia spirata to Turritellidae.  In addition I have posted three new families each represented by a single species in my collection.  All three families are tropical to subtropical; Ficidae which feed on worms, Tonnidae on sea stars and sea cucumbers, and Ranellidae which feed on echinoderms and other mollusks.  Taxonomy of the new families as well as those which were added are as follows:

 

Phylum Mollusca

     Class Gastropoda

          Order Trochida

               Family Turbinidae

                    Gelasinostoma elegantula (Dall, 1892)

                    Lithopoma phoebium (Roding, 1798)

                    Lithopoma precursor (Dall, 1892)

                    Lithopoma tectariaeformis (Petuch, 1986)

                    Turbo castanea Gmelin, 1791

                    Turbo castanea f. ayersi Olsson, 1967

                    Turbo castanea f. crenulata Gmelin, 1791

                    Turbo dominicensis Gabb, 1873

                    Turbo lindae Petuch, 1994

                    Turbo wellsi Tucker & Wilson, 1933

          Order [unassigned] Caenogastropoda

               Family Turritellidae

                    Turritella alumensis Mansfield, 1930

                    Turritella apicalis (Heilprin, 1887)

                    Turritella cookei Mansfield, 1930

                    Turritella gladeensis (Mansfield, 1931)

                    Turritella magnasulcus (Petuch, 1991)

                    Turritella perattenuata (Heilprin, 1887)

                    Turritella perexilis (Conrad, 1875)

                    Turritella pontoni (Mansfield, 1931)

                   Turritella wagneriana (Olsson & Harbison, 1953)

                   Vermicularia recta Olsson & Harbison, 1953

                   Vermicularia spirata (Philippi, 1836)

                   Vermicularia woodringi Olsson & Harbinson, 1953

          Order Littorinimorpha

               Family Ficidae

                     Ficus jacksonensis Olsson & Harbinson, 1953

               Family Tonnidae

                    Malea sp.

               Family Ranellidae

                    Cymatium sp.

 

Images can be seen in my gallery Gastropods of the Tamiami Formation.

 

Mike

[Coco]

Thanks for your job on your galery !

 

Coco

[Plantguy]

Thanks Mike! Much appreciated. I wish I had the same level of perseverance...I'm way behind....So there is another Vermicularia out there...hmmm...I always thought some of them looked a bit different...

Dang bryozoans are driving me nuts...Still sorting them and trying to photograph. I started cutting a few in half looking to figure out/correlate with their differing exterior shapes/structures....and then there are those cool and frustrating oysters..you've seen some of the recent posts by others....Its all good--learning more each time. 

Thanks again for your sharing your expertise! 

Regards, Chris 

[MikeR]

I added three additional families to my Tamiami Gallery.  Two are Families which each contain a single minute species in my collection; Cerithiopsidae and Rissoinidae.  The other Family is Cassidae commonly known as the Helmet shells.  This Family which is popular with modern shell collectors, are active night hunters of echinoids.  The additions are as follows:

 

Phylum Mollusca

     Class Gastropoda

          Order [unassigned] Caenogastropoda

               Family Cerithiopsidae

                    Seila adamsii (H.C. Lea, 1845)

          Order Littorinimorpha

               Family Rissoinidae

                     Schwartziella floridana (Olsson & Harbison, 1953)

               Family Cassidae

                     Cassis floridensis Tucker & Wilson, 1933

                     Semicassis granulata (Born, 1778)

                     Sconsia hodgii (Conrad, 1841)

 

Images can be seen in my gallery Gastropods of the Tamiami Formation.

 

Enjoy!

 

Mike

[Nimravis]

Great job Mke.

[Shellseeker]

Mike,

My curiosity is primarily driven by my finds... I have been trying to find Megs and whales (found a whale jaw fragment that seems to come from Tampa member) but occasionally, I stumble on a pile of fossil shells 150 feet from where I found the jaw. These come from above Arcadia Fm, Tampa Member.

Sometimes I am interested in identifying and dating the fossil and approximate era. I recognize the gastropods.  Well recognize in a pliable sense, One gastropod might be the ancestor of a modern King's Crown Melongena subcoronata Heilprin, 1886 , the other a Southern Arrow Pyrazisinus scalatus (Heilprin, 1886) and I can tell something that looks a lot like a scallop.  I search for Florida fossil scallops and find Pecten sayanus Dall, seems to have the approx dates 20-16 myas and looks pretty close.

I know that you are putting lots of gastropods into your member collection, but when I search for melongena or scalatus on TFF home page, I get zero results.

[MikeR]

Hi Jack

 

Hope you have been well and hopefully see you at the FPS trip next month.  I do not pretend to know much about the Arcadia Formation especially compared to you guys who hunt the Peace River Basin, however molluscan preservation is mostly casts or moldic.  An example from the forum here LINK.  Did you find the shells in-situ or lying nearby?  The shells appear to be Caloosahatchee Formation; Carolinapecten eboreus, Pyrazisinus scalatus and Melongena subcoronata.  The Caloosahatchee has been mined in Desoto and Charlotte Counties for shell so there might be an interfinger in the river basin if not introduced.  I haven't posted Melongena yet but a few examples of P. scalatus HERE and HERE.

 

Mike

[Shellseeker]

6 hours ago, MikeR said:

Hope you have been well and hopefully see you at the FPS trip next month

Not sure,  I have a vacation weekend trip going on National Fossil Day so if the trip gets connected with that weekend, I can't , but I am focused on your words "next month" .  I currently have October open.

 

7 hours ago, MikeR said:

Did you find the shells in-situ or lying nearby? 

I think you have the right call.. I am looking for 20 mya and Caloosahatchee is 2-3 mya.  The seashells were in a couple of small hills likely dumped by heavy equipment.

 

On searching the forum, I guess it just depends which page I search on ... It is working for me now...

[Plantguy]

10 hours ago, Shellseeker said:

Mike,

My curiosity is primarily driven by my finds... I have been trying to find Megs and whales (found a whale jaw fragment that seems to come from Tampa member) but occasionally, I stumble on a pile of fossil shells 150 feet from where I found the jaw. These come from above Arcadia Fm, Tampa Member.

Sometimes I am interested in identifying and dating the fossil and approximate era. I recognize the gastropods.  Well recognize in a pliable sense, One gastropod might be the ancestor of a modern King's Crown Melongena subcoronata Heilprin, 1886 , the other a Southern Arrow Pyrazisinus scalatus (Heilprin, 1886) and I can tell something that looks a lot like a scallop.  I search for Florida fossil scallops and find Pecten sayanus Dall, seems to have the approx dates 20-16 myas and looks pretty close.

I know that you are putting lots of gastropods into your member collection, but when I search for melongena or scalatus on TFF home page, I get zero results.

 

Hey Jack, nice finds! The Melongena's are pretty common around these parts and I've not figured them out either..qood questions. Regards, Chris 

[Plantguy]

Keep going Mike! Regards, Chris 

[I_gotta_rock]

This is awesome!  I volunteer at a museum where we I do a lot of ID work. I have been posting the stuff I document from Calvert Cliffs in the Collections section as I go (I collected and donated). I am just starting on Delaware Cretaceous fossils with the possibility of doing an updated ID book with the Collection Manager. It's a really tough project involving resources from all over the edge of that ancient sea, not just our specific, under-documented area. I've done some work with Pinecrest bivalves, too. In some ways, that makes Delaware look like a wealth of information, but you do have the fortune that many of the species you find are still alive. Keep it up!  I bookmarked the page and may very well be using it as a resource down the road!

[MikeR]

Two new Families are added to my Tamiami gallery.  Vermetidae aka worm shells are sessile filter feeding gastropods which are often mistaken for annelids.  The second Family is Xenophoridae or the carrier shells which cement shells, rocks and other small debris for camouflage.  Eaters of dirt for detritus and forams there is only one species in my collection, X. floridana whose descendant X. conchyliophora can still be found in South Florida and Caribbean waters today.  Taxonomy of the two families below.  Images can be seen in my gallery Gastropods of the Tamiami Formation.

 

Phylum Mollusca

     Class Gastropoda

          Order Littorinimorpha

               Family Xenophoridae

                     Xenophora floridana (Mansfield, 1930)

               Family Vermetidae

                    Petaloconchus floridanus Olsson & Harbison, 1953

                    Petaloconchus sculpturatus H.C. Lea, 1843

                    Serpulorbis granifera (Say, 1824)

[DPS Ammonite]

@MikeR What percent of the species that you find in theTamaimi Fm. are still extant anywhere? 

 

Supposedly more than 50% of the fossil species of shells from the Pliocene/ Pleistocene Merced Fm. (0.2- 4mya) south of San Francisco, CA (where I collected) are still extant somewhere along the Pacific coast.

[MikeR]

18 hours ago, DPS Ammonite said:

@MikeR What percent of the species that you find in theTamaimi Fm. are still extant anywhere? 

 

Supposedly more than 50% of the fossil species of shells from the Pliocene/ Pleistocene Merced Fm. (0.2- 4mya) south of San Francisco, CA (where I collected) are still extant somewhere along the Pacific coast.

@DPS Ammonite  The published number for extant mollusks from the Tamiami is less than 30%.

 

I have had an interest in the comparisons between the two Plio-Pleistocene faunas for quite awhile.  A lot of work was done in the 90s most notably from Warren Allmon now at PRI to compare extinction rates as well as rates of species origination on both sides of the Central American Isthmus.  I could not find the reference however I have read that around 70% of the Plio-Pleistocene molluscan fauna in the Eastern Pacific is still present whereas around 80% of that in the Western Atlantic is extinct.  Much of that had to do with the rise of the CAI which permanently restricted the flow between the two oceans.  Ocean nutrient productivity prior to the CAI was similar on both sides however when permanently restricted in the Mid-Pliocene it changed dramatically in the WA, decreasing productivity and increasing the Gulf Stream.   Frequent rise and fall of sea level due to polar ice beginning around the end of the Pliocene through the Pleistocene played particular havoc with the molluscan faunas in the WA.  Speciation rates were high in the WA tropics, however the molluscan fauna was affected with each Ice Age and therefore origination was very cyclic contributing to the high extinction rate.

 

Although my main concentration has been WA fossil mollusks, I have traveled a lot to the west coast and just this year began prepping and identifying two decades of accumulated fossil material.  I have already completed curation of my Pleistocene material (Palos Verdes, Bay Point, Santa Barbara Formations) and just now beginning Pliocene lots (San Diego, Purisima, Merced, and Imperial Formations).  I also have quite a bit of Oligocene and Eocene material from Washington and Oregon that I need to get to at some point as well.  Especially with the Pleistocene, identification has been aided with the fact that much of the EP fauna survives today.

 

Mike

[MikeR]

I just added three new families to my gallery album.  Eulimidae, a mostly small taxa which are parasitic to echinoderms.  The other two Eratoidae and Triviidae are related to cowries and both feed on sea squirts, Triviidae which drill a hole through the tunicate exterior while Eratoidae inserts its proboscis into the tunicate aperture.  Both also lay their eggs within sea squirts.  Taxonomy of the new groups as follows:

 

Phylum Mollusca

     Class Gastropoda

          Order Littorinimorpha

               Family Eulimidae

                    Melanella calkinsi Olsson & Harbison, 1953

                    Melanella magnoliana Gardner & Aldrich, 1919

                    Niso aeglees Bush, 1885

                    Niso willcoxiana Dall, 1889

                    Strombiformis dalli Gardner & Aldrich, 1919

               Family Eratoidae

                    Hespererato maugeriae Gray, 1832

               Family Triviidae

                    Niveria suffusa (Gray, 1827)

                    Pusula crovoae Olsson, 1967

                    Pusula pediculus (Linne, 1758)

                    Cleotrivia petrela (Olsson & Harbison, 1953)

 

Images can be seen in my gallery Gastropods of the Tamiami Formation.

 

Mike

[MikeR]

Today I added another family to my gallery of Tamiami Gastropods; Cypraeidae aka the cowries.  Although their feeding habits are not well known because of their nocturnal nature, some species are thought to feed on sponges while others are algae grazers.  Within the Tamiami Formation, Siphocypraea is the predominate genus.  See my blog post concerning Siphocypraea taxonomy LINK.

 

Species of this latest group as follows:

 

Phylum Mollusca

     Class Gastropoda

          Order Littorinimorpha

               Family Eulimidae

                    Cypraea sp.

                    Siphocypraea briani (Petuch, 1996)

                    Siphocypraea carolinensis floridana (Mansfield, 1931)

                    Siphocypraea hughesi Olsson & Petit, 1964

                    Siphocypraea ketteri Petuch, 1994

                    Siphocypraea lindae (Petuch, 1986)

                    Siphocypraea mulepenensis Petuch, 1994

                    Siphocypraea sarasotaensis Petuch, 1994

                    Siphocypraea transitoria Olsson & Petit, 1964

                    Siphocypraea trippeana Parodiz, 1988

 

Many of this latest batch of images were captured using techniques from the excellent primer by @Boesse  Idiot's Guide.  I think taking the extra time in learning to get it right was well worth the effort.

 

Images can be seen at Tamiami Gastropods

 

Enjoy!

Mike

[MikeR]

With the latest set of images, I have begun posting gastropods belong to the Order Neogastropoda.  These are primarily marine snails having only one auricle, one kidney, one gill and a well developed siphon and shell siphonal canal.  These images also represent the first of those within my Tamiami collection of the Family Muricidae aka the Murex or Rock Snails.  Murex, drilling predators feeding mainly on other mollusks, are popular with shell collectors based upon their unusual shells with strong ribs, frills and spines.  Muricidae today are highly variable and successful representing approximately 10% of existing Neogastropoda.  This diversity is also seen in the fossil record and the Tamiami Formation is no exception.  Because of the large number of different species within the Tamiami, I will be posting images based upon subfamilies within Muricidae recognized by the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS).

 

The first set of Muricidae images are of the Subfamily Muricinae and are as follows:

 

Order Neogastropoda

     Family Muricidae

          Subfamily Muricinae

               Calotrophon ostrearum (Conrad, 1846)

               Calotrophon ostrearum conradi (Mansfield, 1930)  

               Chicoreus floridanus E.H. Vokes, 1965 

               Chicoreus xestos E.H. Vokes, 1974 

               Hexaplex hertweckorum (Petuch, 1988) 

               Phyllonotus globosus (Emmons, 1858) 

               Vokesimurex rubidus (Baker, 1897) 

 

As a side note, I am still having a struggle with smaller shells one inch or less.  I apologize for some of the blurriness however this won't be solved until I buy a macro lens for my camera.

 

Images can be seen at Tamiami Gastropods

 

Enjoy!

Mike

[FossilDAWG]

Mike,

Thank you for this extremely useful series of contributions. 

 

Don

[Coco]

It is always a great pleasure to consult your galleries !

 

Coco