Conus (Conasprella) sauros (Garcia, 2006)

Remarks ⁽¹⁾

This small, high-spired species is common in some Dominican fossil localities, but the name that should be applied to it is not clear. Maury figured a specimen of this species (PRI 28606) and called it Conus tortuosostriatus Toula, 1911, a species likely described from the Miocene Gatun Formation of the Canal Zone, Panama. Woodring showed that C. tortuosostriatus is a different species and referred Maury’s [40] specimen to C. gabbi Pilsbry and

Johnson, 1917. The type of C. gabbi (ANSP 2553) was observed (see Pilsbry, 1921, pl. 21, Fig. 9) and it appears to be a different species: it is much larger (SL 42.5 mm) and the posterior half of its last whorl is convex in profile, while it is nearly straight in this species. The type of C. gracilissimus Guppy, 1866—a taxon originally described from Jamaica—is similar to this species, but bears tubercles on all of its spire whorls, which is not a characteristic of the species treated here, which has weak tubercles on the first postnuclear whorl and on the final spire whorls, but not in-between. This species is similar to the extant western Atlantic species C. sauros (Garcia, 2006)—which was recently characterized by Kohn — and placed in the genus Conasprella and subgenus Dalliconus Tucker and Tenorio, 2009 by Puillandre et al. Once again, however, the fossil species differs by not having tubercles on all of its spire whorls, which is a feature of Conasprella sauros. Determination of whether this fossil form, which has been known at least since Maury, requires a new name will require additional research; until then, it is simply compared to the modern species as Conasprella cf. sauros ⁽¹⁾.

The union between North and South America began 150-80 million years ago, when tectonic activity began pushing up underwater volcanic arcs in the area. It was completed very recently, about 3 billion years ago, when the collision between the Caribbean and Nazca tectonic plates raised the seafloor, creating the isthmus. The fact that marine currents could flow through this area, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, may explain the remarkable similarity between Conus orbignyi and Conus sauros.

Bibliografia Consultata

(1) - Hendricks (2015) “Glowing Seashells: Diversity of Fossilized Coloration Patterns on Coral Reef-Associated Cone Snail (Gastropoda: Conidae) Shells from the Neogene of the Dominican Republic”

(2) - “Conus sauros, a new Conus species (Gastropoda: Conidae) from the Gulf of Mexico” Emilio Fabiän GARCIA (2006)