Barbotella Cossmann 1918

Subgenus Barbotella Cossmann, 1918 †

Type species. Turbo hoernesi Barbot de Marny, 1869, OD (Cossmann 1918: 117). Middle-late Miocene (Bessarabian), Ukraine.

Diagnosis. Large, massive, turbiniform shells. Spire whorls convex with weak shoulder angulation, partly with weak angulation at abapical suture. Last whorl inflated, convex. Shell surface nearly smooth or with weak spiral cords on spire whorls, often bearing small nodes. Some species develop blunt, somewhat rugulose, prosocline axial swellings especially on last whorl. Umbilicus covered by broad inner lip or reduced to narrow chink.

Remarks. Endemic to the Bessarabian (mid-Sarmatian) of the Eastern Paratethys. The species assigned to Barbotella are highly variable and numerous names are available for certain morphologies. Most of these might represent only morphotypes of two or three species. The shoulder and basal angulations and the sculpture of early teleoconch whorls suggests that Barbotella is a Bessarabian offshoot of Sarmatigibbula. Therefore, it is treated herein as subgenus of Sarmatigibbula.