Cenozoic Muricidae of the Western Atlantic Region. Part XII - The Subfamily Ocenebrinae (In Part)

Abstract

Sixteen species assigned to the muricid subfamily Ocenebrinae are treated, comprising only those species characterized by having (in all but possibly one case) a sealed siphonal canal.  Nine genus-groups are included, of which three, all from the Haywood Landing Member of the Belgrade Formation (latest Oligocene, North Carolina), are new.  These are:  Fenolignum (type:  F. umbilicatum, n. sp.), Argyrobessa  (type: Murex kellumi Richards, 1943), and Pteropurpura (Odontopurpura), n. subgen.  (type:  Tritonalia festivoidea Vokes, 1963).  There are few taxa in any of the genus-groups; six are monotypic, including the three new taxa, and the previously described genera Miocenebra, Ocinebrina, and Ceratostoma.  The remaining genus-groups have only a small number of species included:  Pteropurpura s.s. (3); Pterorytis s.s. (3), and Pterorytis (Microrhytis) (4).  Of the 16 species treated, four are new:  Ocinebrina francesae and Pterorytis (Microrhytis) christopheri, from the Early Miocene Cantaure Formation, Venezuela; Pteropurpura (Pyeropurpura) bosesei, from the Santa Rosa beds, Veracruz, Mexico; and Fenolignum umbilicatum, from the Haywood Landing Member, Belgrade Formation, North Carolina.  The genera treated are largely extinct, at least in the western Atlantic, although Ocinebrina and Ceratostoma survive elsewhere, and only one of the included species, Ptreorpurpura bequaerti, still lives in the waters of the western Atlantic.