A MIOCENE MOLLUSK OF THE GENUS HALIOTIS FROM 

 THE TEMBLOR RANGE, CALIFORNIA ' 



By W. P. WOODKING 



United States Geological Surv€i/ 



Among the manj' unrecorded lots of California Tertiary fossils in 

 the national collections is one obtained by Robert Anderson and 

 R. W. Pack in 1909 in the hills along the west edge of the southern 

 Temblor Range adjoining Eikhorn Plain, which lies on the northeast 

 side of the San Andreas rift in eastern San Luis Obispo County, 

 Calif. This collection contains 20 specimens of Haliotis. Though 

 very little shell substance is preserved, the material is far better than 

 the three imperfect specimens on which Haliotis jjolaea^- the first 

 American Miocene species to be described, was based. The relative 

 abundance of a genus so rare in the fossil state made an impression 

 on the collectors — an impression so lasting that Mr. Pack on seeing 

 the account of Haliotis palaea recalled their find and wrote to me 

 concerning it. 



In the description of Haliotis palaea attention was drawn to the 

 rarity of Haliotis and of most other rock-clinging shells as fossils. 

 Its relative abundance at the locality discovered by Messrs. Ander- 

 son and Pack hardly affords a basis for altering that view. It is 

 estimated that the total number of Miocene shells that have been 

 collected in California runs into the tens of thousands and that the 

 number of localities is in the tliousands, yet exactly 23 specimens of 

 Haliotis have so far turned up, and they have been found at 2 local- 

 ities. The other fossils collected at the Temblor Range locality give 

 no clue as to the unusual conditions that favored the rapid burial 

 of the abalone shells, and no observations are available as to the rocky 

 headlands on which they lived. 



Genus HALIOTIS Linnaeus 



Ealiotifi Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, p. 779. 1758. 



Type (by subsequent designation, Montfort, Conch. Syst., vol. 

 2, p. 119, 1810). — Haliotis asininus Linnaeus (emendation for 

 asinina)^ recent, Indo-Pacific. 



1 Published with the permission of the Director of the U. S. Geological Survey. 



2 Wood ring, W. P., A Miocene Haliotis from southern California. Journ. Pal, vol. 5, 

 no. 1, pp. 34-39, pi. 6, 1931. 



No. 2938.— Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 81. Art. 15. 



11929S— 32 3 



