Revised descriptions of New Zealand Cenozoic Mollusca from Beu and Maxwell (1990)
| | Revised descriptions of New Zealand Cenozoic Mollusca from Beu and Maxwell (1990) |
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  (Pl. 37n): holotype, "Oaro Creek valley, Amuri Bluff district", collected by C. A. Cotton, almost certainly from summit of hill east of Glenstrae Station, northern Hundalee Hills, southern Marlborough, Nukumaruan (TM6816, GNS) |
Beu & Maxwell (1990): Chapter 14; p. 298; pl. 37 n.
Synonymy: Siphonalia elegans Suter 1917, p. 29
Classification: Buccinulidae
Description: Small for genus (28-33 mm high), tall and narrow, with moderately long, narrow canal twisted strongly to left; axial costae commence abruptly at shoulder as narrowly rounded nodules, producing a strongly concave sutural ramp. Sculpture of prominent, narrow, weakly sinuous axial costae, 10-12 per whorl, extending well down onto base of last whorl, crossed by many very fine, closely spaced spiral threads on spire, grading down into much more prominent, narrow, closely spaced spiral cords on base of last whorl. Aperture smooth, lightly thickened in large shells. Protoconch dome-shaped, of 2 whorls, smooth except for axial costellae on last quarter-whorl, very small for genus.
Comparison: Aeneator elegans is an unusually strongly ribbed and shouldered little species, restricted in the living fauna to the upper bathyal zone (in about 450-1200 m) in canyons and on the continental slope of the north-eastern South Island, offshore from the area where it occurs as a fossil. The more widespread but less common Recent species A. valedictus (Watson) has axial sculpture only as nodules around the shoulder angle, and occurs with A. elegans, but also lives in somewhat shallower water; the two are smaller than other finely sculptured Aeneator species.
Distribution: Mangapanian-Recent; "Oaro Creek valley, Amuri Bluff district", type, almost certainly from the Oaro bathyal molluscan fauna (Beu 1979) on the summit of the hill east of Glenstrae Station homestead, northern Hundalee Hills, southern Marlborough, Nukumaruan; a common fossil in mudstone and "pebbly mudstone" near-shore, deep-water facies (probably indicating deposition in former deep-sea canyons) in North Canterbury (Cheviot-Parnassus area and the Conway River) and southern Marlborough; abundant at the presumed type locality in the northern Hundalee Hills.
Cite this publication as: "A.G. Beu and J.I. Raine (2009). Revised
descriptions of New Zealand Cenozoic Mollusca from Beu and Maxwell (1990). GNS
Science miscellaneous series no. 27."
© GNS Science, 2009
ISBN
978-0-478-19705-1
ISSN 1177-2441
(Included with a PDF facsimile file
copy of New Zealand Geological Survey Paleontological Bulletin 58 in CD version
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Zealand)