Vesicomyidae Dall & Simpson, 1901

Saether, Kristian P., Jingeng, Sha, Little, Crispin T. S. & Campbell, Kathleen A., 2016, New records and a new species of bivalve (Mollusca: Bivalvia) from Miocene hydrocarbon seep deposits, North Island, New Zealand, Zootaxa 4154 (1), pp. 1-26 : 12-13

Family Vesicomyidae Dall & Simpson, 1901

Remarks. Carter et al. (2011) placed the vesicomyids alongside glossids and kelliellids in superfamily Glossoidea Gray, 1847, but Bieler et al. (2014) noted that Vesicomyidae Dall & Simpson, 1901 , is not closely related to Glossidae Gray, 1847 . Further molecular studies are required to resolve an appropriate superfamily for Vesicomyidae , so we avoid assigning one here.

Vesicomyidae is among the most extensively reported families from fossil seep deposits—at least 20 formally named species (plus one subspecies) in six genera have been identified, with many more reports of specimens that could not be identified to species level, from ca. 100 discrete fossil deposits worldwide. There has been much confusion over the systematic position of several fossil seep-associated vesicomyid genera, and work to resolve this is still ongoing (e.g. Krylova & Sahling 2010; Amano & Kiel 2010, 2011, 2012; Audzijonyte et al. 2012; Krylova et al. 2015).

There also are more vesicomyid bivalve species (six) reported from modern New Zealand seep localities than of any other mollusc family, with Baco et al. (2010) identifying four species of Calyptogena Dall, 1891 (their spp. 1, 2, A, and D) and Lewis & Marshall (1996) reporting the presence of Calyptogena plus two distinct species of Vesicomya (their spp. A and B, now assigned to Isorropodon Sturany, 1896 ; Campbell et al. 2010). Amano et al. (2014) recently described the two vesicomyids found in Miocene New Zealand seep deposits: Notocalyptogena neozelandica Amano, Saether, Little & Campbell, 2014 , and Pliocardia ? sp. No further information is offered here for N. neozelandica , but some new distribution data for Pliocardia ? sp. are provided below.