The Genus Truncaria (Gastropoda: Buccinidae) in the Esmeraldas Beds of Northwestern Ecuador

Abstract

In collections made in the Early Pliocene Esmeraldas fauna, Onzole Formation, of northwestern Ecuador, there are four examples of a species of the genus Truncaria Adams and Reeve, 1850, which previously has been known only from the Recent fauna. Wenz (1941, p. 1194) included in the synonymy of Truncaria, the Eocene genus Coptaxis Cossmann (1901, p. 226; proposed as a replacement name for Buccinopsis Deshayes, 1865, non Conrad, 1857) and cited the genus as occurring in the Eocene of Europe with one species in the Recent. There is no more than a familial similarity between these two totally disjunct occurrences and Truncaria has not been recognized previously as a fossil.