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Nützel, A. & D. L. Geiger. 2006. Paläontologische Zeitschrift 80: 277-283. Triassurella carnica n. gen. n. sp., a new scissurelloid limpet-shaped gastropod is described from the Late Triassic (early Carnian) Cassian Formation. It represents one of the few Triassic members of the slit-bearing nonnacreous vetigastropods of the Scissurelloidea-Fissurelloidea-group and suggests that diversity and disparity of this group are greater than previously known. Despite descriptive work on the Cassian fauna for more than 160 years, the Cassian Lagerstätte still produces new taxa. However, most of these new taxa are rare (sampling saturation) or minute (collecting bias). Triassurella carnica closely resembles the Recent hot vent limpet Temnocinclis and is probably closely related to it. In contrast to Temnocinclis, Triassurella lived in tropical shallow water. Thus, the finding of Triassurella corroborates the on-shore/off-shore hypothesis for the vertical colonization of the ocean, which says that originations and innovations tend to occur first in near-shore, shallow-water environments and spread subsequently to deep-water off-shore environments. Pdf files of many publications are available here. |