Daffymitra lindae, a new genus and species of Volutomitridae (Neogastropoda) from the Bellingshausen Abyssal Plain

Daffymitra lindae, new genus, new species, is described from the Bellingshausen Abyssal Plain off Ellsworthland, Antarctica. Known only from its shell, this new taxon is included in the family Volutomitridae, but differentiated from all known living genera and species on the basis of its inflated shell shape, with an attenuated anterior and distinctive siphonal canal, as well as by the shape and disposition of its three recessed, obliquely oriented columellar plaits. This new taxon represents the first record of Volutomitridae from abyssal depths. The conchological similarity of Daffymitra to the Upper Cretaceous genus Volutomorpha raises the possibility that Daffymitra may be a surviving descendent of a lineage presumed extinct since the end of the Cretaceous, and suggests that a reassessment of the relationships between the various Cretaceous genera assigned to Volutoderminae and the earliest Volutomitridae.