Homsey Collection Provides New Insight and New Questions About Multiple Little-Understood Species of Cretaceous Gastropods

A recent donation of Upper Cretaceous mollusks from the Mount Laurel Formation in Delaware, USA, contained a large number of specimens attributed to Laxispira sp., Gabb 1876. Although Laxispira is divided into two species based on ornament and how tightly the unsutured coils are arranged, all publications prior to 1993 represented both as consistently shaped, with small variations in the shape of the aperture. This lot contains shells suggesting that these species were more varied than even David Dockery III’s 1993 paper described, while still sharing certain characteristics, particularly their loosely coiled growth habit. Some of the specimens in the lot closely resemble other species found in the Mount Laurel, including one that was described from a single steinkern. This preliminary report describes the similarities and differences within the lot and compares items in the lot to other described species. More work is required to determine how many species are represented in this lot, if a revised description is called for, or whether some of the similar known species are misidentified Laxispiras.