First record of Cocculinella (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Cocculiniformia) from the Lower Pleistocene of Southern Italy with the description of two new species

Cocculinella freti n. sp., from Archi and Valanidi (Reggio Calabria) and Cocculinella bertolasoi n. sp., from Valanidi (Reggio Calabria) and Capo Milazzo (Messina, Sicily), are described from three southern Italian Lower Pleistocene outcrops (bathyal assemblages). No species of the genus Cocculinella Thiele, 1909 is known from the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, whereas three living species are known from the Indo-Pacific. Very little, mostly questionable information is known on fossil species of the genus. The present report is the first unequivocal fossil record of Cocculinella, allowing the stratigraphic and biogeographic range of the genus to be extended to the Lower Pleistocene of the Mediterranean.