A revision of the cerithioidean genus Modulus, based on shell characters and new fossil material from the Neogene Caribbean and Indonesia, shows the group not to be monogeneric. Several distinct species groups, with restricted geographical distributions, were identified. The genus Modulus Gray, 1842, has a geological history starting in the latest Eocene to earliest Oligocene in tropical America, extending to the present day Caribbean and Pacific Panamic faunas, and is found in the early and middle Miocene eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean assemblages, after which there is a gap in its history until the present day, when it is found living off West Africa. Trochomodulus gen. nov. is an exclusively tropical American genus, represented from the late-early Miocene to the present day Caribbean and Pacific Panamic faunas. Laevimodulus gen. nov. and Psammodulus Collins, 1934, are also exclusively tropical American genera, with a MiocenePliocene fossil record that did not survive to the present day. In the Indo-Pacific, Indomodulus gen. nov. first appears in the early Miocene of Indonesia, after which there is no fossil record until the Pleistocene, and is today represented by a single, widely-distributed Indo-Pacific species. Conomodulus nov. gen. is restricted to the Miocene of Indonesia. Six new species were described; from the Caribbean: Trochomodulus paraguanenesis spec. nov., Laevimodulus canae spec. nov., and Laevimodulus gurabensis spec. nov.; from Indonesia: Conomodulus renemai spec. nov., Indomodulus pseudotectum spec. nov., and Indomodulus miocenicum spec. nov.

Basteria

CC BY-NC 4.0 NL ("Naamsvermelding-NietCommercieel")

Nederlandse Malacologische Vereniging

Bernard Landau, Geraat J. Vermeij, & Sonja Reich. (2014). Classification of the Modulidae (Caenogastropoda, Cerithioidea), with new genera and new fossil species from the Neogene of tropical America and Indonesia. Basteria, 78(1/3), 1–29.