Eucrassatella meridionalis

Geological Range

Late Pliocene; Extinct.

Paleogeographic Distribution

Southern Florida to North Carolina.

Remarks

Original Description (from Dall, 1900, p. 1473):

"The type in the Miocene of Shiloh and Jericho, Cumberland County, New Jersey; Plum Point, Maryland; the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and the variety at Alum Bluff, Florida.

The typical locality of the Crassatella melina was New Jersey, where it is the most common bivalve in the marls. The variety, which have been tempted to call species, differs from it in having the nepionic undulations continued on radius of twelve millimetres or more, while in melinus the radius of undulation is not above seven millimetres; the southern shell is relatively less compressed; the anterior dorsal area is bounded by ridge within which the impressed lunule occupies about half the area, while in typical melinus the margin is coincident throughout with the ridges proceeding from the beaks. The Florida shell is more attenuated behind, the dorsal slopes more steep, the margin of the base more rounded in front and more insinuated behind. But Plum Point specimens are to some extent intermediate between the two in some of these characters, so prefer to regard the Alum Bluff shell for the present as a variety."

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Stratigraphic Occurrences

Late Pliocene

Duplin Formation (SC, NC)

Jackson Bluff Formation (N. FL)

Tamiami Formation (Lower) (S. FL)

Tamiami Formation (Pinecrest Beds) (S. FL)