Xenophoridae, Troschel, 1852

Irwin, Alison R., Bouchet, Philippe, Crame, J. Alistair, Harper, Elizabeth M., Kronenberg, Gijs C., Strong, Ellen E. & Williams, Suzanne T., 2024, Molecular phylogenetics of the superfamily Stromboidea (Caenogastropoda): New insights from increased taxon sampling, Zoologica Scripta 53 (6), pp. 818-838 : 823

2.6.2 | Xenophoridae

The earliest Xenophoridae is generally dated to the Late Cretaceous ( Ponder, 1983) . Early specimens are often internal casts, with a trochiform shell shape and scars, or impressions, from the agglutination of foreign objects as the only useful characters for identification to family level ( Stephenson, 1952; Wade, 1926) (Figure 1a; Supplementary Material S3). These scars may be confused with taphonomic artefacts. The earliest xenophorid specimen ( Kiel & Perrilliat, 2001; Ponder, 1983; Tracey et al., 1993) is a poorly preserved cast of Xenophora ? sp. with impressions possibly from agglutinated shell fragments ( Stephenson, 1952) (USNM PAL 105677, not figured), from the Cenomanian (Woodbine Formation, Texas). A cast and an incomplete shell of Xenophora leprosa (Morton, 1834) from the Campanian/Maastrichtian have more convincing scars (Ripley Formation, Tennessee: Wade, 1926, pl. 56, figs 7 and 8; Corsicana Marl, Texas: Stephenson, 1941, figs 17–19). Acanthoxenophora Perilliat & Vega 2001 is recorded from the Campanian and possibly the Santonian ( Kiel & Krüger, 2006, fig. 11; Pietzonka et al., 2023, fig. 5). However, preliminary analyses with these calibrations led to highly unrealistic node ages; therefore, we use Xenophora ? sp. (Cenomanian) to date the crown age (Table 1).