''Comitas aldingensis'' is an extinct

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

sea snail Sea snails are slow-moving marine (ocean), marine gastropod Mollusca, molluscs, usually with visible external shells, such as whelk or abalone. They share the Taxonomic classification, taxonomic class Gastropoda with slugs, which are distinguishe ...

, a marine

gastropod Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and fro ...

mollusc Mollusca is a phylum of protostome, protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant taxon, extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum ...

in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Pseudomelatomidae Pseudomelatomidae is a family (biology), family of predatory sea snails, marine gastropods included in the superfamily Conoidea (previously Conacea) and part of the Neogastropoda (Taxonomy of the Gastropoda (Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005), Bouchet & Ro ...

.MolluscaBase (2018). Comitas aldingensis Powell, 1944 †. Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1033307 on 2018-06-24

Description

Distribution

This extinct marine species was found in upper Eocene strata off

Aldinga Beach, South Australia __NOTOC__ Aldinga Beach is an outer southern suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. It lies within the City of Onkaparinga and has the postcode 5173. At the , Aldinga Beach had a population of 10,557. It lies about a kilometre west of the smaller ...

. The type specimen is in the

Auckland Museum The Auckland War Memorial Museum (), also known as Auckland Museum, is one of New Zealand's most important museums and war memorials. Its neoclassical architecture, neoclassical building constructed in the 1920s and 1950s, stands on Observatory ...

References

* A.W.B. Powell (1944), The Australian Tertiary Mollusca of the Family Turridae *

External links

Auckland Museum: ''Comitas aldingensis'' (holotype)

Darragh, T. A. (2017). Further Mollusca from the late Eocene Pallinup Formation, Eucla Basin, Western Australia. Records of the West Australian Museum 32: 29-100
aldingensis Gastropods described in 1944 Gastropods of Australia {{Pseudomelatomidae-stub