Some Oligocene chitons (Mollusca: Polyplacophora) from Germany and France

Abstract

placophorans did not receive much attention from the academic community. The early authors sometimes mentioned any chiton valves at the end of their mono­ graphs on bivalve and gastropod faunas (e.g., Sand berger 1858–1863; Reuss 1860; Cossmann 1888; Boettger 1902, 1906–1907; Cossmann & Peyrot 1909–1935; Zilch 1934). Before the 1950s very few papers focused specifically on fossil polyplacophorans. A notable exception is the work of Šulc (1934), which has remained an indispensable reference for any later study on chitons from the Cenozoic of Europe. The large majority of European chiton records are from Neogene, while chitons from the Paleogene are poorly known, with greater prevalence of records from Eocene (Cossmann 1888, 1922; Cossmann & Pissarro 1900, 1905; Wrigley 1943; Bielokrys 1999, 2000; Dell’Angelo et al. 2011, 2015a; Cherns & Schwabe 2017). Oligocene records even are less prevalent, limited to Germany (Sand ­ berger 1858–1863; Koenen 1892; Janssen 1978; Gürs 1992, 1995; Müller 2011), Belgium (Marquet et al. 2008), France (Rolle 1862, Cossmann & Peyrot 1909– 1935, Vergneau 1966, Dell’Angelo et al. 2018a), Italy (Dell’Angelo & Palazzi 1992, Dell’Angelo et al. 2015c). The recently discovery of the type material of four chiton species from the Oligocene of Germany and France preserved in the Natural History Museum Vienna (Šulc collection) is of great importance, and permits a better knowledge of these poorly known species. We provide for the first time SEM-images of these species, and translations of the original descriptions.