Fasciculicardia Maxwell, 1969

Pérez, Damián E. & Del Río, Claudia J., 2017, Systematics of the family Carditidae (Bivalvia: Archiheterodonta) in the Cenozoic of Argentina, Zootaxa 4338 (1), pp. 51-84 : 66

Genus Fasciculicardia Maxwell, 1969

Type species. Venericardia subintermedia Suter, 1917 (p. 74) (by original designation). lower–middle Miocene of New Zealand.

Diagnosis. Shell small to medium-sized with a subcircular outline. Lunule small, vertical or inclined forward. Right anterior tooth weak; middle tooth prominent and curved; posterior tooth large and narrow. Left anterior tooth small, short and triangular; posterior elongate, narrow and slightly curved. External sculpture of 26 to 32 high, sharp, moderately wide tripartite radial ribs, flanked by very smooth paracostal ribs, and covered by serrated nodes. Third and fourth posterior radial ribs stronger than the rest. Tubular nodes distally opened in posterior area (modified from Maxwell 1969: 173).

Included species. F. acanthodes ( Suter, 1917) (middle Eocene, New Zealand), F.? allophyla ( Maxwell, 1992) (middle–upper Eocene, New Zealand), F. bartrumi ( Fleming, 1950) (middle Eocene, New Zealand), F. benhami ( Fleming, 1950) (Oligocene, New Zealand and Australia), F. faceta ( Suter, 1917) (upper Oligocene, New Zealand), F. gracilicostata ( Tenison-Woods, 1877) (lower Miocene, Australia), F. healyi ( Fleming, 1950) (middle Eocene, New Zealand), F. janjukiensis ( Chapman & Singleton, 1927) (Oligocene, Australia), F. latissima ( Tate, 1886) (Oligocene, Australia), F. nuntia ( Marwick, 1928) (lower Eocene, New Zealand and Australia), F. scabrosa ( Tate, 1886) (Oligocene, Australia), F. polynema ( Tate, 1886) (lower–middle Miocene, Australia).

Remarks. According to Maxwell (1969), the sculpture is the main morphological character of Fasciculicardia species. Beu (2006) considered it a subgenus of Glyptoactis Stewart, 1930 , but this genus has a more subrectangular outline, a lower number of wider radial ribs and more developed paracostal ribs. The genus is widely distributed from the Eocene–Miocene interval of Australia and New Zealand ( Beu & Maxwell 1990).