The largest known cowrie and the iterative evolution of giant cypraeid gastropods

Abstract

Based on the fossil record, we explore the macroevolutionary relationship between species richness and gigantism in cowries (Cypraeidae), the best-studied family of gastropods, with a global diversity distribution that parallels that of tropical corals, mangroves and seagrasses. We introduce Vicetia bizzottoi sp. nov. based on a Priabonian fossil found in northeastern Italy, the largest documented cowrie found so far and the youngest of a lineage of Eocene Gisortiinae species. The Gisortiinae stratigraphic record in western Europe indicates that species selection favoured large size and armouring of the shell. Palaeoecology and per-stage species richness suggest that gigantism occurred in peripheral habitats with respect to diversity hotspots, where smaller species were favoured. The Eocene–Oligocene boundary was marked by a turnover and the Chattian global warming favoured small-sized species of derived clades. Species selection leading to gigantism is further documented in Miocene lineages of Zoila and Umbilia, in the southern hemisphere, two extant genera distributed at the periphery of modern diversity hotspots, suggesting that the negative relationship between size and diversity is a recurring pattern in the evolutionary history of cowries. This palaeontological evidence is projected onto the existing hypotheses that explain analogous biogeographic patterns in various other taxa. Likewise, body size-species richness negative relationship was possibly driven in cowries by physiological, ecological and life history constraints.