Genus BAIRDOPPILATA Coryell, Sample and Jennings, 1935

1935 Bairdoppilata Coryell, Sample and Jennings: 3.

1963 Bairdia M’Coy —Morkhoven, p. 32 [part].

1969 Bairdoppilata (Bairdoppilata) Coryell, Sample and Jennings —Maddocks, p. 66.

1995 Bairdoppilata Coryell, Sample and Jennings —Maddocks, p. 215.

2022 Bairdoppilata Coryell, Sample and Jennings —Maddocks, p. 309.

Type species: Bairdoppilata martyni Coryell, Sample & Jennings, 1935 was described from the Chickasawhay Formation of Mississippi (Oligocene). Photographs of a topotype specimen were published by Maddocks (2022, p. 325, figs 15J–L) to supplement the drawing accompanying the original description.

Species Included: The soft anatomy of Bairdoppilata has been described, at least in part, for only 15 named species (Maddocks 2022, Table 2), although many others have been designated from fossil and subfossil specimens.

The most abundant and widespread species of this genus in the northern Caribbean is Ba. cushmani (Tressler, 1949), which is the second or third most abundant species of Bairdiidae in many assemblages in the northern and central Caribbean (Maddocks 2022). The two new species proposed here are widely distributed (Table 1) but less common in most assemblages than Ba. cushmani . Dried fragments of soft parts are available for only one of them. Several additional Caribbean species of Bairdoppilata are uncommon or rare.