Notes on Tertiary and Recent Solemyacidae

Abstract

A survey of the literature on the genus Solemya Lamarck reveals 23 Recent and 30 Tertiary species. The Recent species, referred to the subgenera Solemya s.s., Petrasma Dall and Acharax Dall are listed with data on their size and geographic and bathymetric distribution. Among the Tertiary species, three have been reported from the Paleocene of North America and Europe; eleven from the Eocene of Europe (France, Belgium, and Italy), Asia (India), and North America (Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and California); six Oligocene species have been described, from North America (Washington and Oregon), South America (Peru), and Europe (Germany and Belgium); seven species and two varieties are reported from the Miocene of Europe (Austria, Italy and Denmark), North Ameri- ca (Oregon and Costa Rica), Asia (Japan), and New Zealand; one Pliocene species has been described from Japan, and specimens referred to Recent species have been reported from the Pliocene of Italy and of California. One Miocene species has also been reported from the Pliocene of California. The only species described from the Pleistocene (Japan) has been referred to the synonymy of a Recent form. The genus Adulomya Kuroda is known from three species, all of Miocene age, in Japan. Two new names are proposed: Solemya (Acharax) prashadi for S. (A.) grandis Prashad 1932, non Verrill and Bush 1898; and Solemya stantoni for the Jurassic S. occidentalis Stanton 1895, non S. (Petrasma) occidentalis Deshayes 1857.