Vaccinites alpinus (Douvillé, 1897)

Taxonomy

Rudist

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Bivalvia
Order: Hippuritoida
Family: Hippuritidae
Genus: Vaccinites
Species: Vaccinites alpinus
Author Citation (Douvillé, 1897)

Geological Time Scale

Eon: Phanerozoic
Era: Mesozoic
Period: Cretaceous
Sub Period: None
Epoch: Late
International Age: Campanian

Stratigraphy

Gosau Group
St. Bartholomä Formation

Provenance

Collector: Franz Bernhard
Date Collected: 12/07/2017
Acquired by: Field Collection

Dimensions

Width: 70 mm

Location

St. Bartholomä
Western Styria
Styria
Austria

• alpinus
• an3921
• austria
• campanian
• eastern alps
• gosau basin of kainach - st. bartholomä
• gosau group
• polished slab
• st. bartholomä formation
• styria
• vaccinites

Comments

Apical view of a polished cross section of the right (lower) valve of Vaccinites alpinus from the St. Bartholomä Formation of the Gosau basin of Kainach - St. Bartholomä in western Styria, Austria. Typical are the subparallel pillars, all situated in a small area of the rudist. The shell around the L-piller (left one) is missing in this specimen.

For specimens like this, the name Hippurites/Vaccinites cornuvaccinum was in use. Study of specimens with preserved upper valve showed that V. cornuvaccinum is restricted to the Coniacian and V. alpinus to the upper Santonian and Campanian (Steuber & Schlüter, 2012). They can not be distinguished with the lower valve alone, but have different upper valves. Hence, identification is (also) based on stratigraphic information (Steuber, 2001: „This species [V. ultimus] was also figured by Kaumanns (1962) from Kainach (Styria) and erroneously assigned to various species of the group of V. cornuvaccinum.“). By the way, V. ultimus is a junior synonym of V. alpinus... (Steuber, 2003).

The specimen is from a small scree in a small, abandoned marl quarry, located in the eastern part of Kalchberg, southwest of St. Bartholomä (Point 25 in my own documentation).