Genus Bairdia McCoy, 1844

Preliminary remark

Sohn (1960) erected 2 genera from the study of specimens previously attributed to Bairdia McCoy, 1844: Cryptobairdia Sohn, 1960 and Rectobairdia Sohn, 1960. The first differs from Bairdia by the “dorso– anterior margin being not distinct” (Sohn 1960: 47) and the second by “a straight to very gently curved dorsal margin” (Sohn 1960: 52). However, Becker (1965) demonstrated that the morphology of the dorsal outline is “rather variable (even partly superficial) and, therefore only useful to described subgenera”

(Becker 2001: 288). We consider that these differences are not sufficient to consider them as valid genera and we choose to follow Becker (1965) and use Cryptobairdia and Rectobairdia as subgenera.

Type species

Bairdia curta McCoy, 1844 subsequently designated by Ulrich & Bassler (1923).