Mauidrillia aldingensis

Mauidrillia aldingensis is an extinct species of sea snail, a marine gastropod mollusc in the family Horaiclavidae. Fossils of the species date to the late Eocene, and have been found in strata of the St Vincent Basin of South Australia, and the Otway Basin of South Australia and Victoria.

Description

In the original description, Powell described the species as follows:
The holotype of the species measures in height and in diameter. The species has a protoconch of between 1.3-2.0 whorls.

Taxonomy

The species was first described by A.W.B. Powell in 1944. The holotype was collected from the Blanche Point Formation in Aldinga, South Australia at an unknown date prior to 1945, and is held by the Auckland War Memorial Museum.
D. C. Long theorised that M. aldingensis was an ancestral species of the Oligocene-Miocene species M. torquayensis, M. pullulascens, M. trispiralis, M. consutilis, M. partinoda and M. serrulata.

Ecology

M. aldingensis was an epifaunal carnivore.

Distribution

This extinct marine species occurs in late Eocene strata of the St Vincent Basin and Otway Basin, including the Blanche Point Formation and Browns Creek Formation of South Australia and Victoria. A fossil found in the Southern Carnarvon Basin of Western Australia dating to the Middle-Late Eocene may represent an occurrence of M. aldingensis, however this fossil differed morphologically by having more tumid whorls and a more elongated canal.