Genus Parachiton Thiele, 1909

Type species. Lepidopleurus (Parachiton) acuminatus Thiele, 1909, by original designation.

Remarks. Parachiton was erected by Thiele (1909) as a subgenus of Lepidopleurus on the basis of its disproportionately large tail valve with subterminal mucro, and an overall similarity of the other valves with species of Lepidopleurus . It is now considered a separate genus (Sirenko 2006), based also on radular differences (Saito 1996). There are 23 Recent species known to date, all distributed in the Indo-West Pacific except for P. africanus (Nierstrasz, 1906) from the Mediterranean Sea.

Distribution. Parachiton is known from the Miocene to the present-day. The fossil record includes Miocene to Pleistocene deposits of the Mediterranean area (Dell’Angelo et al. 2015, 2018a) and the Miocene (Badenian) of the Paratethys (Šulc 1934; Bałuk 1971, 1984; Ruman & Hudácková 2015).