Taxonomy and stratigraphy of late Barremian-Albian species of Horiopleura Douvillé (Hippuritida, Polyconitidae) of the Mediterranean and southwestern Asian regions

- Horiopleura is represented by eight species spanning the late Barremian-Albian p.p. interval.
- We describe a new species and transfer in the above genus four species formerly ascribed to distinctive genera.
- The biostratigraphic value of these taxa is emphasized.

The genus Horiopleura Douvillé is restricted to the Mediterranean and southwestern Asian regions, and is represented by eight species developed during the late Barremian-Albian. This revision of species contributed to delineate generic and specific characters. The definition of species is based on a set of external and internal qualitative and quantitative characters, the key characters being size, radial bands, ornamentation and the presence of a left posterior canal. Morphometry documents the dimorphism of some species, corroborated by regression analysis. Horiopleura dumortieri is an upper Barremian-lowermost Bedoulian species from SE France, Horiopleura brevis n. sp. is a Bedoulian, Mediterranean species, extending to the lower Gargasian, Horiopleura gigantea (pro Monopleura) is a Bedoulian species, restricted the Ukrainian Carpathes. Horiopleura lamberti and H. almerae are Upper Aptian to lower Albian species, and are known from Southern Europe and North Africa. Horiopleura haydeni is essentially late Aptian and typifies the southwestern Asia “Yasin fauna”. Horiopleura distefanoi and H. gemmellaroi (both formerly placed in Polyconites) are restricted to the Albian of the peri-Adriatic regions and North Africa, the former being present in the Middle East. Multiple correspondence analysis using six categorical variables and their categorical states, applied to the comparison of species, tends to corroborate our overall taxonomic frame-work, and reveals three groups of species with distinctive ages.