822
Journal of Paleontology 92(5):804–837
profile. Shoulder angulate or subangulate; smooth. Widest part of shell at or just below shoulder. Aperture uniform in width from base to shoulder. Siphonal notch absent. Spiral grooves present on anterior third of last whorl. Spire whorls.—Spire moderate (RSH 0.20–0.21; x=0:21;
N=2); outline concave. Protoconch unknown. The apex of the holotype is broken, but may record evidence of a single weakly tuberculate postnuclear whorl; similarly, the eroded apex of UF 224823 appears to show evidence of several weakly tuberculate early postnuclear whorls. Early whorls strongly stepped; later whorls weakly stepped. Sutural ramp sigmoidal to nearly convex; weak spiral striae present. Sutural groove pre- sent. Subsutural flexure asymmetrical (ASSF 0.4–0.6, x=0:5, N=3), depth less than width (DWSSF 0.5–0.7, x=0:7, N=3) (Fig. 9.5).
Coloration pattern.—Two noninteracting patterns present;
these differ slightly in the color of emitted light. The primary (base) pattern consists of irregularly shaped axial blotches in UF 256543 (Fig. 9.6, 9.7; specimen from UF locality 5299), but in UF 271020 (Fig. 9.8) and UF 224823 (Fig. 9.9) consists of spirally arranged dots and spots, which are sometimes sub- triangular in shape. The secondary pattern consists of a con- tinuous (UF 224823 and UF 256543) or nearly continuous (UF 271020) spiral band at the midline of the last whorl; UF 224823 shows evidence of a second continuous spiral band that covers the anterior third of the shell. The coloration pattern of the anterior half of the last whorl is unknown. Sutural ramp with irregular blotches.
Materials.—Holotype: USNM 645748 (Fig. 9.1–9.5). Other material: two specimens from UF locality YN020 (UF 224823, UF 271020) and one from UF locality 5299 (UF 256543).
Remarks.—Prior to this study, the only known specimen of Conus taphrus was Woodring’s (1970) holotype. Woodring (1970, p. 354) considered the holotype’s “sutural channel” to be “a distinctive feature.” While none of the three newly recog- nized specimens ofC. taphrus possesses a sutural channel that is as well developed as that of the holotype, they are otherwise consistent with it in other aspects of shell form. The holotype reveals no evidence of its coloration pattern under UV light, but the new specimens fluoresce strongly, showing some variability in their primary and secondary patterns. Pending discovery of additional specimens, this is assumed to represent intraspecific variability. Among co-occurring species, C. taphrus can only be
mistaken for Conasprella imitator (Brown and Pilsbry, 1911). While coloration patterns revealed by UV light readily separate the two species, other differences in shell morphology are less distinctive. Both species have sigmoidal last whorl profiles, but the curves are more pronounced in Conasprella imitator, which also has a more angulate shoulder. The subsutural flexure of Conasprella imitator (DWSSF x=1:0) is also deeper than that of Conus taphrus (DWSSF x=0:7). Conus taphrus is similar to the extant western Atlantic
species C. daucus Hwass in Bruguière, 1792 and C. amphiurgus Dall, 1889, which, while not closely related to one another, are both members of the Dauciconus clade (Puillandre et al., 2014, 2015). Kohn (2014) recently revised both of these extant taxa.
His figured specimens of each species exhibit a large amount of variability in coloration pattern, but the basic elements of their patterns (e.g., a primary pattern consisting of axial and/or spiral elements overlain by a secondary pattern of bands) are broadly consistent with the pattern described here for C. taphrus. Other features of the shell form of C. taphrus are also generally consistent with C. daucus and C. amphiurgus. Perhaps most notably, Kohn (2014, p. 228) stated that the early whorls of C. daucus exhibit a “prominent suture,” which is one of the most diagnostic features of C. taphrus. While knowledge of C. taphrus will improve with
discovery of additional, better-preserved specimens, the known shell features of this species are similar enough to extant taxa such asC. daucus andC. amphiurgus to assign the species to the subgenus Dauciconus. Tucker and Tenorio (2009) included C. taphrus in a listing of fossil species that they considered to belong to the genus Gradiconus da Motta, 1991. Puillandre et al. (2015) synonymized Gradiconus with the diverse subgenus Dauciconus Cotton, 1945. This adds further support to the opinion here that C. taphrus belongs in the Dauciconus clade, even if determination of its position within Dauciconus requires additional specimens and study.
Conus?(Dauciconus?) multiliratus Böse, 1906 Figure 10.1–10.18
1906 Conus agassizi var. multiliratus Böse, p. 49, pl. 5, figs. 34–38.
1917 Conus gaza; Maury, p. 210, pl. 7, fig. 12. 1921 Conus gaza; Pilsbry, p. 330. 1970 Conus multiliratus multiliratus; Woodring, p. 356, pl. 57, figs. 3, 4.
1911 Conus gaza Johnson and Pilsbry in Brown and Pilsbry, p. 342, pl. 23, figs. 2, 3.
1993 Conus multiliratus multiliratus; Pitt and Pitt, p. 12, pl. 4, fig. 3.
2009 Conasprelloides multiliratus (Böse); Tucker and Tenorio, p. 88.
2015 Conus (Dauciconus) multiliratus; Hendricks, p. 46, fig. 22a–e.
Holotype.—IGM(no known catalog number), Tuxtepec, Oaxaca Province,Mexico (stratum unknown);Woodring (1970) reported the specimen as missing and this remained the case as of 2010 (M.d.C. Perrilliat, personal communication, September 14, 2010).
Occurrence.—Woodring (1970) presented Böse’s (1906) type locality at Tuxtepec as middle Miocene, but its exact stratigraphic position is not known. In the Panama Canal Zone, Conus multi- liratus spans the lower to upper Gatun Formation (Woodring, 1970). Recently, Hendricks (2015) reported the species from the early Pliocene Gurabo Formation of the Dominican Republic. Additional occurrences come from the Bocas del Toro area of Panama (Limón Formation), Colombia, Jamaica (Bowden For- mation), and the Dominican Republic (Cercado Formation) (Woodring, 1970), but these require confirmation.
Description.—Maximum shell size: moderately small. Largest observed specimen from YN020 (UF 270996; Fig. 10.8) has SL
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