Turriculate gastropods (Coelostylinidae) from the Esino limestone outcrop (Ladinian, Lombardy) of the Stoppani Collection housed at the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Milan (Italy)

• Main Author: Vittorio Pieroni
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: PAGEPress Publications 2016-10-01
• Series: Natural History Sciences
• Subjects: Gastropoda; Coelostylinidae; Ladinian; Stoppani; Milan.
• Online Access: https://sisn.pagepress.org/index.php/nhs/article/view/288

Here, I propose a revision of 19 specimens of turriculate gastropod (family Coelostylinidae) from the Esino limestone formation (Ladinian). They form part of the surviving material of the historic Stoppani Collection, which was almost totally destroyed in the Second World War. The collection is kept at the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale in Milan, Italy. The specimens have already been described by Garassino (1992) but without a critical revision of their classification. Indeed, based on presumed likenesses with specimens reconstructed in Paléontologie Lombarde (Stoppani, 1858-60), Garassino believed he had rediscovered many of Stoppani’s holotypes. For his classification of the material, Garassino consulted a revision by Kittl (1899) but he did not take into account the much more realistic drawings of the Stoppani’s holotypes that Kittl published therein. A more detailed study, conducted by comparing the shapes and dimensions of the specimens with the drawings and original descriptions, and their reclassification, reveals that none of the specimens are, in actual fact, a holotype or more correctly a specimen described and illustrated by Stoppani, and that some have been assigned the wrong label. Nevertheless, the material and original handwritten labels are confirmed to be from Stoppani’s studies.