Protocypraea, SP., SCHILDER, 1927

Groves, Lindsey & Squires, Richard L., 2023, Revision of northeast Pacific Paleogene cypraeoidean gastropods, including recognition of three new species: implications for paleobiogeographic distribution and faunal turnover, PaleoBios 40 (10), pp. 1-52 : 17

PROTOCYPRAEA ? SP. 1

FIGS. 5P, 6A–C

Eocypraea sp. Williams et al., 2018: unnumbered fig.

Hypotype— CDM 997.91.3 (figs. 5P, 6A–C), length 48.1 mm, width, 31.4 mm, height 25.3 mm, height. Informal lo- cality AP3 (J.W. Haggart, personal communication, 2022).

Occurrence— Questionably late Paleocene (Thanetian Stage), central east coast of Vancouver Island , British Columbia, Canada . Oyster Bay Formation (“Appian Way beds”), approximately 45.5°N, intertidal area on east coast of Central Island District, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada .

Description— Shell moderately large, smooth, turnipshape, base narrow, aperture narrow, dentition relatively small size. Shell tapers rapidly anteriorly; anterior part of shell somewhat projected. Shell with maximum width posterior to center of shell, but very inflated posterior area incomplete showing only small depressed area (only base of spire present) with sunken sulcus area. Aperture is moderately wide and fairly straight, with some bending in posterior area. Outer lip shows numerous relatively small-sized teeth anteriorly. Inner lip similar, except for the teeth being smaller and not extensive.

Remarks— Only a single specimen (possibly a juve- nile) is known. It is nearly complete, except for most of the broken-off posteriormost part of the shell, thus precluding the assignment of this unnamed specimen.

This specimen, which is the northernmost occurrence of a Paleogene cypraeoidean in the NEP region, is like no other NEP Paleogene cypraeoidean, nor like any NEP Late Cretaceous specimen. A manuscript currently in preparation by J.W. Haggart et al. will further document this so-called “Appian Way fauna” [presumably of late Paleocene age and contemporaneous with the “Oyster Bay Formation”], Central Island District, Vancouver Is- land, British Columbia, Canada. McLachlan and Pospelova (2021) presented dinoflagellate data for an early Pa- leocene age of the “Oyster Bay Formation,” but that age is in contradiction to late Paleocene to middle Eocene ages variously based on plants, sporomorphs, marine mollusks, decapods, and shark teeth (see McLachlan and Pospelova 2021 for a review of this literature).