Bittium lacteum (Philippi, 1836)

* Cerithium lacteum Philippi 1836: 195 .

Cerithiopsis lactea Philippi — Mayer 1864: 66.

Bittium lacteum (Philippi, 1836) — Linden & Wagner 1990, fig. 3.

Bittium lacteum (Philippi, 1836) — Poppe & Goto 1991: 111, pl. 14, fig. 18.

Bittium lacteum (Philippi, 1836) — Landau et al. 2004b: 10, pl. 2, fig. 2.

Discussion. Mayer (1864: 66) recorded one specimen from the locality of Feteirinhas (= Ponta das Salinas). Bittium lacteum (Philippi, 1836) is characterised by its paucispiral protoconch and strongly tubercular spirals and three spirals on the base. We cannot confirm this record. This species does not occur nowadays in the Azores (Ávila et al. 1998, 2000; Martins et al. 2009; Cordeiro et al. 2015) nor it is present in the assemblages of the Last Interglacial deposits of Santa Maria Island (Ávila et al. 2002, 2009a, 2010, 2015a, 2018).

Distribution. Lower Pliocene: Atlantic, Santa Maria Island, Azores (Mayer 1864). Upper Pliocene: western Mediterranean, Estepona Basin, Spain (Landau et al. 2004b). Present-day: Atlantic, British Isles, Portugal, Canary Islands and Mediterranean (Poppe & Goto 1991; Giannuzzi-Savelli et al. 1997).