Five species of bivalves and two species of gastropods are described from late Selandian to earliest Thanetian wood-fall communities from the Katsuhira Formation in Urahoro Town, eastern Hokkaido, northern Japan. Three bivalves and two gastropods are new to science: Thyasira (Thyasira) oliveri Amano and Jenkins, new species, Astarte (Astarte) paleocenica Amano and Jenkins, new species, Poromya katsuhiraensis Amano and Jenkins, new species, Neverita majimai Amano and Jenkins, new species, and Biplica paleocenica Amano and Jenkins, new species. Poromya katsuhiraensis n. sp. and Neverita majimai n. sp. are the earliest records of their genus. Astarte paleocenica n. sp. is the last species before the genus disappeared from the northern Pacific region during the Eocene, only to reappear with the opening of the Bering Strait during the latest Miocene. Moreover, two bivalve species and one gastropod genus are Cretaceous relict forms: Propeamussium yubarense (Yabe and Nagao, 1928), Myrtea ezoensis (Nagao, 1938), and Biplica Popenoe, 1957. These species and other relict protobranch bivalves had wide geographical ranges in the deep sea during the Cretaceous, which helped them to survive the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. The chemosynthesis-based species Bathyacmaea? sp., Myrtea ezoensis, and Thyasira oliveri n. sp. were recovered, but small bathymodioline mussels have not been found. This confirms that the small deep-sea mussels did not appear in the wood-fall communities at least by the earliest Thanetian.
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1 July 2018
New and Mesozoic-relict mollusks from Paleocene wood-fall Communities in Urahoro Town, eastern Hokkaido, northern Japan
Kazutaka Amano,
Robert G. Jenkins,
Hiroshi Kurita
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Journal of Paleontology
Vol. 92 • No. 4
July 2018
Vol. 92 • No. 4
July 2018