Montagu types

Oliver et al. have just published an impressive paper dealing with re-located type material of Colonel George Montagu (1753-1815).

“A complete list of new molluscan taxa introduced by Col. George Montagu (1753–1815) is presented. The available type material of these taxa are itemised and illustrated. The majority are present in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter with a smaller number in the Natural History Museum, London. The historic background of both collections is reviewed with special reference to the many non-British species spuriously introduced into Testacea Britannica and its Supplement”.

I know that locating historical collections doesn’t sound like rocket-science. but in our discipline where ‘every name counts’ it is really very helpful to have type material from our deceased colleagues available for study. And, of course, the further back in time the more difficult it becomes to locate this material and track its provenance.

In the paper also some Neotropical material turned up, quite unexpected for someone who worked on ‘Testacea Britannica’ (i.c. British shells)!

Here is his Helix detrita Montagu, 1803 not Müller, 1774. It proved to be a specimen of Drymaeus elongatus (Röding, 1789), a West Indian species…

Finally, it’s worth repeating here the last lines of their paper: “It is sad to report that those with a knowledge of historic conchology are diminising in numbers and that curatorial expertise throughout the museum sector is threatening the value and access of many collections”.

Reference:
Oliver PG, Morgenroth H, Salvador A (2017) Type specimens of Mollusca described by Col. George Montagu in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter and The Natural History Museum, London. Zoosystematics and Evolution 93(2): 363-412. https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.93.13073

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New Scutalus from Chile

Freshly published: a paper with the description of a new species from northern Chile. The species, of which only shells were collected, is tentatively assigned to the genus Scutalus. This genus is hitherto not recognised in Chile, but occurs more northern in the coastal area of Peru.

The abstract reads “A new species of Scutalus Albers, 1850 (Gastropoda: Bulimulidae), Scutalus chango sp. n., is described from a coastal area of northern Chile. Empty shells of this new species were found buried in sand and under boulders and rocks in the foothills of the Chilean Coastal Range at Paposo, Región de Antofagasta. This new species is distinguished from all other Chilean terrestrial snails by its slender shell with a flared and reflected aperture, and by the presence of a columellar fold. This is the first record of Scutalus in Chile, and the southernmost record for this endemic South American bulimulid genus. The presence of this species in Paposo highlights the need for further research and for conservation guidelines in coastal areas of northern Chile, which have comparatively high levels of biodiversity and endemism”.

Reference:
Araya, J.F. & Breure, A.S.H., 2017. A new terrestrial snail species (Gastropoda: Bulimulidae) from the Región de Antofagasta, northern Chile.  PeerJ 5: e3538 (11 p.).

New records from Baja California

Baja California is an area with a rather scarce land snail fauna, and limited focussed papers in literature. Clark & Salisbury (2016) report on a small collection made during a biodiversity survey inside the Sierra La Laguna Biosphere Reserve, where a new gold mine is being planned.

The snails reported are already known from other localities on the penisula, viz. Naesiotus rimatus (Pfeiffer, 1847), N. spirifer (Gabb, 1868), and Rabdotus sufflatus (Gould in Binney, 1859). A new record is a as yet unidentified Succinea species, which was only collected as dead shell material.

Reference:
Clark, W.H. & Salisbury, R., 2016. New land snail records for Baja California Sur, Mexico. –Conchylia, 47 (3-4): 59-64.

 

Venezuelan land snails

The following report was found on Facebook, with land snails data from NE Venezuela, a region for which hardly reliable data exist in literature.

 

‎Ignacio Agudo‎ aan Moluscos del Caribe/ Moluscos do Caribe/ Caribbean Mollusks

4 december om 23:24 · Florianópolis, Santa Catarina, Brazilië

… NEW UPDATING DATA ( III ) — ABOUT RECENT AND SUB-FOSSIL CONTINENTAL SNAILS (MOLLUSCA: GASTROPODA: CAENOGASTROPODA & PULMONATA) OF ARAYA PARISH, SUCRE STATE, NORTHEASTERN VENEZUELA, SOUTHERN CARIBBEAN REGION: A “PRELIMINARY” FIELD BALANCE !

Total of seventeen (17) verified species (thirteen (13) terrestrial — two (2) non-native/ exotic — and four (4) freshwater forms — one non-native/ exotic), found in “xerophytic environments” of the parish until “December 2016”, distributed in fourteen (14) genus and nine (9) families.

Important to highlight that, in addition to the three (3) other specifically native aquatic/ limnic forms, all the thirteen (13) native terrestrial species so far detected in the region “contradictorily” correspond to own forms of environments/ humid forest ecosystems ……….

_@/”
SYSTEMATIC RELATIONSHIP:

– Family HELICINIDAE Férussac, 1822
Helicina tamsiana (Pfeiffer, 1850)

– Family NEOCYCLOTIDAE Kobelt & Möllendorff, 1897
Poteria fasciatum (Kobelt & Schwanheim, 1912)

– Family AMPULLARIIDAE Gray, 1824
Pomacea glauca (Linnaeus, 1758)
Marisa cornuarietis (Linnaeus, 1758)

– Family LYMNAEIDAE Rafinesque, 1815
Pseudosuccinea columella (Say, 1817)

– Family PLANORBIDAE Rafinesque, 1815
Drepanotrema lucidum (Pfeiffer, 1839)

– Family ORTHALICIDAE Albers, 1860
Bulimulus cacticolus (Reeve, 1849)
Bulimulus constrictus Pfeiffer, 1841)
Bulimulus krebsianus Pilsbry, 1897
Drymaeus multilineatus (Say, 1825)
Oxystyla abducta (Shuttleworth, 1856)
Oxystyla maracaibensis (Pfeiffer, 1899)
Plekocheilus (Eudolichotis) distortus (Bruguière, 1789)

– Family ODONTOSTOMIDAE Pilsbry & Vanatta, 1898
Biotocus (- Tomigerus) cumingi (Pfeiffer, 1849) [according to Simone, 2006: Biotocus cumingi]

– Family SUBULINIDAE Fischer & Crosse, 1877
Beckianum beckianum (Pfeiffer, 1846)
Subulina octona (Bruguière, 1798)

– Family ACHATINIDAE Swainson, 1840
Achatina (Lissachatina) fulica (Bowdich, 1822)

---

The adjective ‘native’ which is used here, should be considered with care. E.g., the Subulinid and Achatinid species have been introduced, and also Drymaeus multilineatus has probably been introduced in the past. The list contains thus several species which originate from elsewhere, which is no big surprise as the locality is at the coast.

Apart from some minor errors (Bulimulus and Drymaeus belong to the family Bulimulidae; Oxystyla should be Orthalicus, abducta = obductus), this is information from a country with comparably hardly good information in the malacological literature.

A new fossil Radiodiscus

Papers on Neotropical fossils are rare, but Sergio Miquel is a regular contributor of them. Although Turazzini & Miquel (2014) was overlooked by me, I mention the paper now it came to my attention. The abstract follows after the break.

“Numerous fossil gastropods have been recorded in an edaphic level of the middle section of the the Aisol Formation (Mendoza Province, Argentina). This stratigraphic section bears an association of fossil mammals suggesting an early Pliocene age (possible Montehermosan SALMA). Up to four taxa of gastropods have been identified, belonging in Succinea Draparnaud (Succineidae), Gastrocopta Wollaston (Vertiginidae), Bostryx Troschel (Bulimulidae), and a new species of Radiodiscus Pilsbry and Ferriss (Charopidae). The fossil record of terrestrial pulmonate mollusks in Argentina is scarce and mainly restricted to the Quaternary. Thus, the record of these taxa is of paramount importance because it constitutes the oldest record of Gastrocopta and Succinea in Argentina, the first record of Bostryx in Mendoza Province, and the first record of the family Charopidae (Radiodiscus sanrafaelensis nov. sp.) in Pliocene deposits of Argentina”.

Reference:
Turazzini, G.F. & Miquel, S.E., 2014. A terrestrial gastropod community from the Early Pliocene (Neogene) of Mendoza, Argentina, with description of a new species of Radiodiscus Pilsbry and Ferriss, 1906 (Mollusca: Pulmonata: Charopidae). – Ameghiniana, 51(5): 396-404.

New paper

In the latest issue of the Journal of Conchology a paper appeared by Araya et al. about the occurrence of Bostryx hennahi (J.E. Gray, 1828) in northern most Chile and southernmost Peru.

This species appears confined to fog oasis in the extreme arid deserts in the region, and is thus an example of a harnessed species to harsh conditions.

Reference:
Araya, J.F., Madrid, M. & Breure, A.S.H., 2016. Bostryx hennahi (Gray, 1828) the largest Chilean bulimulid (Mollusca: Pulmonata) rediscovered among Tillandsia communities in northern Chile. — Journal of Conchology 42: 161–165.

Reviving Galapagos snails

Under this short title as eye-catcher, Villanea et al. (2016) recently published about an improved method to apply ancient-DNA techniques to identify material obtained from empty shells. The full abstract reads as follows: “Snail shells represent an abundant source of information about the organisms that build them, which is particularly vital and relevant for species that are locally or globally extinct. Access to genetic information from snail shells can be valuable, yet previous protocols for extraction of DNA from empty shells have met with extremely low success rates, particularly from shells weathered from long-term exposure to environmental conditions. Here we present two simple protocols for the extraction and amplification of DNA from empty land snail shells from specimens of Galápagos endemic snails, including presumably extinct species. We processed 35 shells of the genus Naesiotus (Bulimulidae) from the Galápagos islands, some from species that have not been observed alive in the past 50 years. We amplified and sequenced short fragments (≤244 bp) of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from 18 specimens. Our results indicate that the implementation of an ancient DNA extraction protocol and careful primer design to target short DNA fragments can result in successful recovery of mtDNA data from such specimens”. The crux is that the method seems to circumvent largely the PCR inhibitors that are co-extracted when using degraded shells. The resulting tree is given below.

One of the co-authors wrote me “We are really excited about this approach as it will allow us to include rare and potentially extinct species to our considerations of the evolutionary history of the Naesiotus group”. Methodical seems the approach sound, although it remains vague what exactly the inhibitors are. Given the more laborious extractions during aDNA work, it seems to me that the PCR will remain the bottle-neck. With more PCRs needed, this will remain a relatively costly procedure.

Reference:
Villanea, F.A., Parent, C.E. & Kemp, B.M., 2016. Reviving Galapagos snails: ancient DNA extraction and amplification from shells of probably extinct Galapagos endemic land snails. – Journal of Molluscan Studies (early online access; doi: 10.1093/mollus/eyw011).