Eocypraeidae is a small family of large sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the superfamily Cypraeoidea, the cowries and cowry allies. The family Eocypraeidae consists mainly of fossil species, except for two species: Sphaerocypraea incomparabilis Briano, 1993 (regarded as valid) and an as yet undescribed species found in the southern Atlantic. In 1963, a fresh shell of what was subsequently named Sphaerocypraea incomparabilis was dredged up by a Soviet trawler in the Gulf of Aden. There are currently (2009) only six known specimens of this shell in various collections.

Taxonomy

The taxonomy of Eocypraeidae is not fully understood and has undergone several modifications.

2005 taxonomy

According to the taxonomy of Bouchet & Rocroi (2005) this family belonged to the tribe Eocypraeini in the subfamily Ovulinae within the family Ovulidae.

2007 taxonomy

Fehse (2007) has raised the tribe Eocypraeini to the status of the family Eocypraeidae, based on morphological research of the radulae, shell and animal morphology and molecular phylogeny research of the 16S ribosomal RNA gene.

2016 taxonomy

Dolin thought that Eocypraeidae was part of the subfamily Prionovolvinae Fehse, 2007 in the family Ovulidae. This line of thought was followed by Reijnen & van der Meij (2019) and even for a while by the database WoRMS and Zvonareva et al., 2020, each relying on a previous author.

2021 taxonomy

In 2021 Fehse accepted the systematic position of Eocypraeidae as valid and more consistent. Still he urges for a complete revision of the Eocypraeidae as well as the fossil Cypraeidae based exclusively on the type shells.

Genera

Genera within the family Eocypraeidae include: