Tracking parallel adaptation of shell morphology through geological times in the land snail genus Pupilla (Gastropoda: Stylommatophora: Pupillidae)
Author
Haase, Martin
Author
Meng, Stefan
Author
Horsák, Michal
text
Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society
2021
2021-03-01
191
3
720
720
https://academic.oup.com/zoolinnean/article/191/3/720/5861197
journal article
276296
10.1093/zoolinnean/zlaa057
c569b071-a44d-4681-8a63-3d54b9bcfac2
0024-4082
5300077
Pupa muscorum var. pratensis
Clessin, 1871
Pupilla pratensis
has been described as a variety of
P. muscorum
(
Pupa muscorum
var.
pratensis
) from the damp fen meadows of Dinkelscherben near Augsburg (
Bavaria
,
Germany
) (
Clessin, 1871
). Since
von Proschwitz
et al.
(2009)
,
P. pratensis
has had independent species status (see also
Horsák
et al.
, 2010
), but has been synonymized with
P. alpicola
(
Charpentier, 1837
)
shortly thereafter (
Nekola
et al.
, 2015
). Here, it is regarded as a lowland morphotype of the latter. The whereabouts of Clessin’s
syntype
series is not known.
Von Proschwitz
et al.
(2009)
figured a specimen collected by Clessin at Dinkelscherben from the Westerlund collection of the Gothenburg Natural History Museum as a
syntype
. However, as it is not dated, this status is doubtful (T. von Proschwitz, pers. comm.). Clessin’s collection in the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde in Stuttgart contains a sample of
P. muscorum
from the type locality Dinkelscherben collected by Clessin in 1880 (SMNS-ZI0120652). Among 154 shells, we identified nine shells of
P. pratensis
not sorted out by Clessin. Five of these nine shells contain the dried soft body and from one of these, we were able to sequence the ITS2 fragment confirming the species identity. Because of the eventful taxonomic history of this taxon, we decided to define
P. pratensis
unambiguously by designation of a
neotype
from this series (
Fig. 11
), which has the following data:
Staatliches Museum für Tierkunde Stuttgart, SMNS-ZI 0138339 [remaining specimens: SMNS-ZI0138340 (DNA of sequenced specimen), SMNS-ZI0138341 (7 shells)]
Type
locality: Dinkelscherben, leg. Clessin 1880.
Height,
3.58 mm
; width, 2.00 mm.
For a description and a justification to consider this name a junior synonym of
P. alpicola
see the
Material
section and our present comparisons.