New Species of Cancellarioidea (Mollusca:Gastropoda) from the Lower Miocene Cantaure Formation of Venezuela

Abstract

The neogastropod superfamily Cancellarioidea is well represented in the Cantaure Formation, exposed in a series of arroyos about 500 meters south of "Casa Cantaure," 14 km west of Pueblo Nuevo, Paraguana Peninsula, Falcon, Venezuela.  Eight species of the superfamily were reported and figured by Jung (1965), two of which are here described as new. Three additional new species and one previously unrecorded from the Cantaure Formation, collected by one of us (BML) on two field trips in 1992 and 1995, brings the total number of Cancellariidae known from the Cantaure Formation to twelve. These are placed in eight genus-group taxa, of which three are previously unreported from this formation (Table 1).  With the exceptions of Cancellaria (Charcolleria) terryi Olsson, 1942, described from the Pliocene Charco Azul beds of Panama and later recorded from the Pliocene Esmeraldas beds of Ecuador (Olsson, 1964, p. 124) and Narona barystoma Woodring, 1970, described from the Pliocene Gatun Formation of Panama, the other ten species are endemic to the Miocene of Venezuela.