Szabó János szerk.: Fragmenta Mineralogica Et Palaentologica 20. 2002. (Budapest, 2002)

FRAGMENTA PALAEONTOLOGICA HUNGARICA 20, BUDAPEST, 2002 Bhujnerita (Neritidae), a new gastropod genus from the Kachchh Jurassic (western India) by Anand K. JAITLY & János SZABÓ Abstract — Bhujnerita n. gen. is the first new gastropod genus that has been established during the exploration of the Jurassic faunas from Kachchh. Beside this, Bhujnerita n. gen. is one of the few genera that seem to be endemic within the Ethiopian Faunal Province. In the family Neritidae, Bhujnerita n. gen. belong to the group of those non-limpet shaped forms which have an inner lip plate that partially closes the aperture. The type species is also new: B. hhattii n. sp. Key words — Gastropoda, Neritidae, Jurassic, Kachchh, Ethiopian Faunal Province. JAITLY, A. K. & SZABÓ, J. (2002): Bhujnerita (Neritidae), a new gastropod genus from the Kachchh Jurassic (western India) — Fragmenta Palaeontologica Hungarica, 20: 49-52. Introduction After an almost complete lack of knowledge about the Jurassic gastropod faunas of westernmost India, Kachchh (written as Kuchh, Kutch or Cutch in earlier publications), recendy two teams contemporaneously have began working to change this situation. Nearly parallel-published first papers (DAS et aL 1999, JAITLY et al. 2000) inform about thirty species, most of them are new. However, the genera, just like in other areas of the Ethiopian Province, have been well known from the faunas of the European epicontinental seas and the Intra-Tethyan areas. The lack of the endemic genera and the high (> 35 %) ratio of the species, occurring also in the European epicontinental Jurassic indicate a rather low level of provincialism in this group of fossils. Of course, the recognition of the new genus does not change this situation too much, however, a separate paper seems to be important to introduce Bhujnerita n. gen. Further details on other new dements of the Kachchh Jurassic gastropod fauna will be given elsewhere (SZABÓ & JAITLY in prep.). Figure 1 shows a sketch map of the localities, further information is provided in J APTLY et al. (2000). The figured specimens are deposited in the fossil collection of the Banaras Flindu University, India. Figure 1 — Locality map of Bhujnerita hhattii n. gen. n. sp. in Kachchh. — Shells indicate occurrences.