Notes on Buccinulum (Gastropoda, Buccinidae), a reappraisal

An attempt was made to assemble what is known at present of Buccinulum in the Indo-Western Pacific Region, fossil and Recent, more scope being offered by the discovery of new Miocene fossils from Java and Sumatra, and the recognition of further fossil species from India and Burma. This induced comparisons with, and revisions of some of the fossil and living species occurring in adjacent zoogeographical provinces. The Recent distribution of the subgenus Euthria appears to be much more extensive than when recorded by Wenz (1938-1944), the minimum enlargement encompassing an area stretching from the eastern Indian Ocean to Japan, via the Philippines and Ryukyu Islands. The knowledge of its fossil distribution, in the Indopacific Region long confined to Javanese Eocene, has likewise greatly expanded by discoveries made in Neogene to Quaternary of India, Burma, Indonesia (Sumatra, Java, Madura, and Borneo), the Philippines, New Hebrides, Fiji?, Ryukyu Islands, and Japan. The relevant data were tabulated. New taxa described are: Buccinulum pendopoense and B. sumatrense, both from presumed Preangerian of Sumatra, and B. walleri sedanense from the Rembangian of Java. It is proposed to include Ornopsis, which was described from the Upper Cretaceous of North America, as a subgenus of Buccinulum. It may well be ancestral to Euthria, considering its similarity to certain of the latter's fossil and living species. Also, a new subgenus, Samudra, with the type species B. djocdjocartae (Martin, 1884) is proposed, for species bearing a very characteristic and pronounced labral sinus. So far this species group seems confined to Indonesian Eocene to Late Miocene, but it may include a Lower Oligocene species described from Germany as well.