Elazigina Sirel, 2012

Consorti, Lorenzo & Rashidi, Koorosh, 2018, A new evidence of passing the Maastichtian-Paleocene boundary by larger benthic foraminifers: The case of Elazigina from the Maastrichtian Tarbur Formation of Iran, Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 63 (3), pp. 595-605 : 598

Genus Elazigina Sirel, 2012

Type species: Kathina subsphaerica Sirel, 1972 ; Turkey, Paleocene.

Remarks. —The main characteristics of the genus are: (i) Low trochospire with smooth dorsal side. (ii) Ventral side occupied by a massive umbilical plug (= central umbo in Hottinger 2014) and surrounded by umbilical piles and funnels. The presence of umbo is not due to folia coalescence. (iii) Absence of a keel. (iv) Spiral interlocular space constrained between umbilical plates and the umbilical piles. (v) Massive feathering occupying the ventral intraseptal interlocular spaces. See Sirel (2012) and Hottinger (2014) for more information on the shell architecture. See Serra-Kiel et al. (2016) and Benedetti et al. (2018) for remarks on taxonomy.

Elazigina has sometimes been confused with the genus Smoutina Drooger, 1960 (e.g., Inan 1988; see Hottinger 2014 for a thorough discussion). The umbilical plug of Elazigina is massive, whereas that of Smoutina is composed by numerous superposed lamellae (probably folia, see Hottinger 2014: pl. 5.18: 3) and is perforated by funnels. Ventral chamber sutures are feathered in Elazigina , unlike Smoutina . Furthermore, Smoutina is reported only from the Caribbean Paleobioprovince ( Hottinger 2014), whereas Elazigina comes from the central and eastern Tethys area. The genus Cideina Sirel, 1991 from the Maastrichtian of Turkey differs from Elazigina by having the flat morphology and no central plug.