Persististrombus latus-Bearing Deposits South of Isola di Capo Rizzuto, Calabria (Southern Italy)

During a research fieldtrip in the Crotone peninsula - an area characterized by a flight of well developed Pleistocene marine terraces - a level rich of in situ Persististrombus latus GMELIN 1791 (= Strombus bubonius LAMARCK 1822) has been discovered in a quarry south of Isola di Capo Rizzuto (Calabria, southern Italy) at ~ 46 m above sea level. P. latus is a shallow warm-water marine gastropod belonging to the Strombidae family. Presently, it lives along the tropical coasts of Africa but entered the Mediterranean through the Gibraltar Strait in the late Pleistocene as part of the socalled Senegalese fauna. P. latus found as fossil in the Mediterranean is commonly considered a marker of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5.5. This is the first documented record of a level containing multiple specimens of in situ P. latus in the Crotone terraces, allowing direct correlation to the Tyrrhenian Stage or MIS 5.5. The bio-calcarenite and associated P. latus specimens have been collected in order to petrographically analyze the sediment and describe the benthic association