Bittium lacteum ( Philippi, 1836 )

Sacchetti, Claudia, Landau, Bernard & Ávila, Sérgio P., 2023, The Lower Pliocene marine gastropods of Santa Maria Island, Azores: Taxonomy and palaeobiogeographic implications, Zootaxa 5295 (1), pp. 1-150 : 32

Bittium lacteum ( Philippi, 1836)

* Cerithium lacteum Philippi 1836: 195 .

Cerithiopsis lactea Philippi — Mayer 1864: 66.

Bittium lacteum ( Philippi, 1836) — Linden & Wagner 1990, fig. 3.

Bittium lacteum ( Philippi, 1836) — Poppe & Goto 1991: 111, pl. 14, fig. 18.

Bittium lacteum ( Philippi, 1836) — Landau et al. 2004b: 10, pl. 2, fig. 2.

Discussion. Mayer (1864: 66) recorded one specimen from the locality of Feteirinhas (= Ponta das Salinas). Bittium lacteum ( Philippi, 1836) is characterised by its paucispiral protoconch and strongly tubercular spirals and three spirals on the base. We cannot confirm this record. This species does not occur nowadays in the Azores ( Ávila et al. 1998, 2000; Martins et al. 2009; Cordeiro et al. 2015) nor it is present in the assemblages of the Last Interglacial deposits of Santa Maria Island ( Ávila et al. 2002, 2009a, 2010, 2015a, 2018).

Distribution. Lower Pliocene: Atlantic, Santa Maria Island, Azores ( Mayer 1864). Upper Pliocene: western Mediterranean, Estepona Basin, Spain ( Landau et al. 2004b). Present-day: Atlantic, British Isles, Portugal, Canary Islands and Mediterranean ( Poppe & Goto 1991; Giannuzzi-Savelli et al. 1997).