The Jurassic Pleurotomarioidean Gastropod Laevitomaria and Its Palaeobiogeographical History

The genus Laevitomaria is reviewed and its palaeobiogeographical history is reconstructed based on the re-examination of its type species L. problematica, the study of material stored at the National Natural History Museum of Luxembourg, and an extensive review of the literature. The systematic study allows ascribing to Laevitomaria a number of Jurassic species from the western European region formerly included in other pleurotomariid genera. The following new combinations are proposed: Laevitomaria allionta, L. amyntas, L. angulba, L. asurai, L. daityai, L. fasciata, L. gyroplata, L. isarensis, L. joannis, L. repeliniana, L. stoddarti, L. subplatyspira, and L. zonata. The genus, which was once considered as endemic of the central part of the western Tethys, shows an evolutionary and palaeogeographical history considerably more complex than previously assumed. It first appeared in the Late Sinemurian in the northern belt of the central western Tethys involved in the Neotethyan rifting, where it experience...