Austromitra lacertosa


Austromitra lacertosa is an extinct species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusk in the family Costellariidae. It a species known to have lived during the Middle Miocene, which has been found in the state of Victoria in Australia.

Description

Cernohorsky described the species as below:
The four and a half whorls, excluding protoconch, are medially subangulated and ornamented with slightly bent angular ribs, which are subtuberculated on the spiral keel and at each suture. The interspaces are faintly striated transversely. The body whorl is oblong, abruptly attenuated to a short, broad, reverted beak, which is spirally ridged; flatly rounded at the suture, ornamented with acute ribs, a slightly tuberculate antesutural keel, and two approximate tubercular ridges in an alignment with posterior angle of the aperture. The outer lip is thin, roundly insinuated at the suture and internally lirate. The columella shows four stout approximate plaits.

Taxonomy

The species was first described as Mitra paucicostata in 1889 by Ralph Tate. In 1970, Walter Oliver Cernohorsky gave the species the provisional name Vexillum lacertosum, after finding that the name given by Reeve was invalid name due to a different species being described using this name in 1862 by Otto Wilhelm Carl Speyer. In 1979, Cernohorsky recombined the species as Austromitra lacertosa, the currently accepted name.

Distribution

Fossils of this marine species date to the Middle Miocene, and have been found in lower beds of the Muddy Creek Formation in Victoria, Australia, with paratypes found in blue clays at Schnapper Point in Mornington, Victoria.