Family EUNERINEIDAE n. fam.

(Fig. 4 I-M)

Nerineidae Zittel, 1873: 328 (pars). — Pchelintsev 1965: 20.

Diptyxinae Bouchet& Rocroi, 2005: 258 (non Pchelintsev, 1965 = Ceritellidae Wenz, 1940).

TYPE GENUS. — Eunerinea Cox, 1949 (1949: 248).

TYPE SPECIES. — Nerinea castor d’Orbigny 1852 (1852: 109).

FAMILY CHARACTERS. — Shells large to very large, broad to narrow turriculate. Whorls of medium height, concave to flat. Bulges along the sutures may bear coarse tubercles.

Grande Quadrangle (Puerto Rico), NHMW 20130267/000; K, Simploptyxis nobilis (Münster, 1844), Late Santonian, Dreistätten (Austria), NHMW 1853/III/30. Scale bars: 10 mm.

Whorl periphery explicitly angular, base rather low. Aperture rhombic in outline, with narrow, twisted siphonal canal. Columella generally solid with large abapical plait delimiting siphonal canal and occasionally a small one adapically. Parietal plait prominent inside shell, decreasing in strength towards aperture and merging with external margin of the inductura. Palatal plait decreasing in size towards aperture.

REMARKS

The internal plaits are largest before the penultimate whorl (Wieczorek 1979; Barker 1990). In the aperture, the columellar plait delimits the siphonal canal against a thick inductura (Figs 4I, J; 7A). The parietal plait flattens towards the aperture and circumscribes the inductura (Fig. 7A). Equally, the palatal plait disappears almost completely towards the margin of the labrum (Wieczorek 1979). In Neoptyxis Pchelintsev, 1934 an additional small plait is developed in the adapical portion of the columella.

THE NEW FAMILY NAME EUNERINEIDAE N. FAM.

Cox (1949) underlines that the genus Nerinea – as conceived by d’Orbigny (1842), Zittel (1873), Cossmann (1896), Dietrich (1925), Wenz (1940) and consequently all other researchers – cannot be upheld for three reasons:

1) following d’Orbigny (1842), all monographs refer to Nerinea tuberculosa Defrance, 1825 as type species. Originally, Defrance had characterized a specimen as “Neriné tuberculeuse”. This vernacular name was latinized to Nerinea tuberculosa Defrance, which therefore is invalid from a nomenclatural standpoint; 2) the genus Nerinea was formally established by Deshayes (1827) upon Nerinea mosae Deshayes, 1827. Cossmann (1898) assigned this species to Ptygmatis Sharpe, 1850 but it actually belongs to the genus Phaneroptyxis Cossmann, 1896, which therefore is synonymous with Nerinea. Cox (1949) therefore renamed Nerinea, as it was commonly used, into Eunerinea with Nerinea castor d’Orbigny, 1850 as type species.

3) Bouchet & Rocroi (2005) replaced the family name by Diptyxidae Pchelintsev, 1965. Diptyxis Oppenheim, 1889 belongs to the Ceritellidae (see above) and cannot typify the present family. It is therefore renamed into Eunerineidae n. fam. with Eunerinea Cox, 1947 as type genus.