The Genus Vitularia (Mollusca: Gastropoda) Discovered in the Miocene of Southern Florida

Abstract

In late 1966 road work uncovered, for a tragically short time, the most fabulous fossil locality that it has ever been the writer's privilege to visit. The construction was for a toll road stretching across the Everglades from Naples, Florida, due east to Fort Lauderdale, and bearing the delightful name of "Alligator Alley." Unfortunately subsequent work completely covered the fossil locality and it is no longer in existence. "Alligator Alley" crosses Florida Highway 29 just south of Sunniland, and at this point the underlying formation is the Tamiami Limestone of late Miocene age. Traveling to the east one passes through exposures of the Buckingham facies of the Tamiami and at a point 13 miles east of Highway 29 the molluscan fauna of the upper Miocene Pinecrest Beds is well developed for about one-quarter mile in either direction. On to the east the Pinecrest is still present for several miles but the collecting was poor. This locality was fraught with exciting fossils but for the writer the single most spectacular find was the discovery of the genus Vitularia in the western Atlantic.