A new species of fossil Scutus Montfort, 1810 from New Zealand (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Fissurellidae)

ABSTRACT

A new fossil species of the genus Scutus (Scutus mirus n. sp.) is described from five Late Oligocene to Early Miocene (Waitakian to Altonian; 25.2–15.9 Ma) localities in the South Island, New Zealand. It is one of the oldest fossil species of Scutus known and probably inhabited very shallow, sub-tropical waters surrounding Zealandia during this time. The holotype of Scutus petrafixus Finlay, 1930 is re-examined; it is possibly from All Day Bay, Kakanui (Waitakian 25.2–21.7 Ma). The New Zealand species documented herein significantly expand our understanding of the fossil record of this shallow-marine molluscan lineage, and by proxy, also indicate the presence of very shallow coastal marine environments around the late Oligocene and early Miocene in southern Zealandia.

KEYWORDS:

• Lepetellida
• Paleoecology
• Zealandia
• Eocene
• Oligocene
• Miocene
• Mount Harris Formation
• Chatton Formation
• Curiosity Shop Sandstone
• Otekaike Limestone

Acknowledgements

I thank Bruce Marshall for access to specimens and the review of an earlier version of the manuscript, Ewan Fordyce for access to specimens and for providing a list of associated taxa found at the Cavendish Quarry, Blands Bluff locality, Wilma Blom for access to the S. petrafixus holotype for dating and photography, Daphne Lee and Marcus Richards for discussions on possible localities for S. petrafixus and for reviewing an earlier version of the manuscript, Hamish Spencer for insightful discussion on Scutus, and GNS Science’s ‘Atlas of Petroleum Prospectivity’ program for use of paleogeographic map data. I thank the following colleagues at GNS Science: Marianna Terezow for assisting with photography of GNS Science specimens and cast making, Hugh Morgans for encouragement and assistance with foraminifera identifications, Kyle Bland for helping plot GIS data and Alan Beu and James Crampton for helpful discussions and for reviewing an earlier version of the manuscript. I thank GNS Science for supporting this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

HJLG was supported in part by a Marsden Fund [grant number UOO-1416] from the Royal Society of New Zealand.