Reconstruction of color markings in Vicarya, a Miocene potamidid gastropod (Mollusca) from SE Asia and Japan

概要

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Color markings of the potamidid gastropods Vicarya yokoyamai Takeyama, 1933 and Vicarya verneuili (d'Archiac, 1851), tropical and subtropical, mangrove-swamp and/or nearby intertidal dwellers during the Miocene in Southeast Asia, Pakistan, Korea and Japan, have been reconstructed. This reconstruction was based on preserved original color markings and UV-light photography associated with computer graphic processing of specimens of V. yokoyamai and V. verneuili from Japan, the Philippines and Indonesia. The results strongly suggest that the two Vicarya species have basically the same spiral color bands on the thick subsutural spiny cord, fine spiral cords of the whorl surface and shell base. Some individual variation was detected in V. yokoyamai, such that the fine spiral cords are suggested to have color pigment the same as or lighter than the whorl surface, and the thick subsutural spiny cords are pigmented either totally or only at the tips of the robust spines. The color markings reconstructed in this paper provide an additional shell character for the controversial relationship among the Vicarya species and subspecies proposed previously.
日本古生物学会の論文
2008-12-31