A new early Miocene Muracypraea Woodring, 1957 (Gastropoda: Cypraeidae) from the Pisco Basin of southern Peru

The cypraeid gastropod, Muracypraea ormenoi new species, is described from lower to middle Miocene beds of the upper-most Oligocene to middle Miocene Chilcatay Formation, Pisco Basin, southern Peru. It is the first cypraeid reported from southern Peru and represents the southernmost occurrence of this genus. Muracypraea is normally a warm-water gastropod and its occurrence in the study area indicates dispersal by means of coastal countercurrents into waters possibly cooled by coastal upwelling. The new species shares a neritic habitat with endemic molluscan taxa and with taxa ranging northward from the Navidad Basin of central Chile.