Genital morphology differentiates three subspecies of the terrestrial slug Arion ater (Linnæus, 1758) s. l. and reveals a continuum of intermediates with the invasive A. vulgaris Moquin-Tandon, 1855
Author
Reise, Heike
Author
Schwarzer, Anne-Katrin
Author
Hutchinson, John M. C.
Author
Schlitt, Bettina
text
Folia Malacologica
2020
2020-03-13
28
1
1
34
http://dx.doi.org/10.12657/folmal.028.001
journal article
10.12657/folmal.028.001
545b2a3f-10d0-4c1d-8136-301d98a3d1d2
4615365
LINNAEUS (1758: 652)
described both
A. ater
and
A. rufus
. If we consider these taxa as conspecific, which name has priority depends on the first reviser. Already
MÜLLER (1774: 2)
treated
ater
as having priority, but he did not mention the name
rufus
(he used the earlier name
subrufus
for what
LINNAEUS (1758)
called
rufus
), so cannot count as a reviser. At latest,
FLEMING (1822: 572)
explicitly treated
A. rufus
as a variety of
A. ater
, and this is the priority consistently followed by others who consider the taxa conspecific.
The nominotypical
A. ater ater
(
Linnaeus, 1758
)
is our AR morphotype,