A large clavatulid species first reported from the Early Pliocene of Italy (Gastropoda, Neogastropoda, Conoidea)

Shells of a species of Perrona, a genus never reported before from the Pliocene of Italy, were collected in the Early Pliocene of southern Tuscany over the last twenty years. These shells recall those of P. villarrasensis Vera-Peláez & Lozano-Francisco 2001, from the Early Pliocene of southern Spain, by virtue of shape, size and development of parietal callus. However the poor condition of available material and the lack of a reliable taxonomic framework for this group of Euro-Mediterranean fossil clavatulids make it difficult to propose a realistic determination. The finding of a species of Perrona in the Pliocene of Italy is very interesting. During the Miocene species of Perrona were common and widespread in the Euro-Mediterranean area, but in the Early Pliocene only four species survived in southern Spain and records from the eastern Mediterranean are limited to one from Tunisia and the present from southern Tuscany.