Saracenaria cf. italica, Defrance, 1824

Bergh, Eugene W. & Compton, John S., 2022, Taxonomy of Middle Miocene foraminifera from the northern Namibian continental shelf, Zootaxa 5091 (1), pp. 1-55 : 16-17

Saracenaria cf. italica

Pl. 2, figs. 13–14

Saracenaria italica Defrance, 1824, p. 344 , pl. 13, fig. 6; Sandidge, 1932, p. 355, pl. XXXII, fig. 18; Barker, 1960, pl. 68, figs. 17–18; 20–23; Braga, 1960, p. 122, pl. 11, fig. 16; McMillan, 1974, p. 49, pl. 4, fig. 8; Martin, 1981, p. 34, pl. 10, fig. 3; Lowry, 1987, p. 177, pl. 9, figs. 16a, b.

Cristellaria italica Brady, 1884, p. 544 , pl. 68, figs. 17–18; 20–23; Cushman, 1923a, p. 125, pl. 35, figs. 2, 5–7.

Description: The test wall is calcareous and finely perforate. The test is planispiral, becoming rectilinear and triangular in cross-section. The sutures are curved and the apertural face is triangular and broad. The aperture is radiate at the dorsal angle of the final chamber.

Remarks: Specimens are relatively large, ranging between 0.5 and 1 mm in width and between 1 and 2 mm in length. The relative abundance is low, forming trace components (<1%) in some of the samples in core 2670.

This species resembles Saracenaria italica , but specimens are worn.

Life strategy: Species of the genus Saracenaria are generally epifaunal ( Barbieri & Panieri, 2004) under suboxic conditions ( Gebhardt, 1999).

Regional occurrence: This study documents the occurrence of this species in middle Miocene sediments from the Namibian outer continental shelf, south of the Kunene River mouth. S. italica has been documented to occur in Quaternary surface sediments on the continental shelf off Lüderitz, Namibia around the southern margin of South Africa to north of Durban, South Africa ( Martin, 1981; Lowry, 1987).