This past semester I worked with three colleagues on a massive trace fossil review paper, which we hope meets success in the next month or so. My primary job on the team was to sort out bioerosion traces, especially those that are macroscopic. As always with such studies, I learned a great deal when forced to do a systematic literature review. One of the ichnogenera new to me was Caedichnus, a wedge-shaped excision found primarily in gastropod shells. It was only described last year by Stafford et al. (2015). Above is an example we happened to have in our collections. Note the fractured margins in this Fusinus shell aperture from the Pliocene of Cyprus. It was likely made by a predatory crustacean (such as a crab or lobster) bashing away at the shell to get to the living snail inside. The predator may have been successful in this case since there is no sign of healing in the snail shell.
Above is an undamaged Fusinus showing a complete aperture. This snail also had its travails, though. Note the round, incomplete borehole just above the aperture. This was made by some kind of drilling predator, likely a naticid snail.
These shells come from the 1996 Wooster-Keck expedition to Cyprus with Steve Dornbos (’97) and me. Like the rest of the Cypriot specimens on this blog, it is from the Nicosia Formation (Pliocene) exposed on the Mesaoria Plain in the center of the island. This specimen comes from the “Exploration” locality described in Dornbos and Wilson (1999).
References:
Dornbos, S.Q. and Wilson, M.A. 1999. Paleoecology of a Pliocene coral reef in Cyprus: Recovery of a marine community from the Messinian Salinity Crisis. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie, Abhandlungen 213: 103-118.
Molinaro, D.J., Stafford, E.S., Collins, B.M., Barclay, K.M., Tyler, C.L. and Leighton, L.R. 2014. Peeling out predation intensity in the fossil record: A test of repair scar frequency as a suitable proxy for predation pressure along a modern predation gradient. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 412: 141-147.
Stafford, E.S., Dietl, G.P., Gingras, M.P. and Leighton, L.R. 2015. Caedichnus, a new ichnogenus representing predatory attack on the gastropod shell aperture. Ichnos 22: 87-102.
Stafford, E.S., Tyler, C.L. and Leighton, L.R. 2015. Gastropod shell repair tracks predator abundance. Marine Ecology 36: 1176-1184.
