A review of the Polystira clade — the Neotropic’s largest marine gastropod radiation (Neogastropoda: Conoidea: Turridae sensu stricto)
Author
Todd, Jonathan A.
Author
Rawlings, Timothy A.
text
Zootaxa
2014
3884
5
445
491
journal article
10.11646/zootaxa.3884.5.5
ad970e8a-8606-4cf6-bff1-d9db0ae8d573
1175-5326
228119
AEF16C1C-5E1D-4A4C-A1A3-096F439C15B5
The
Polystira
clade:
Polystira
and other names
Despite common use of the generic name
Polystira
, by ourselves included, a number of other genus-group names are nomenclaturally available for taxa within what we here call the “
Polystira
clade”. Indeed, one of these names,
Pleuroliria
de
Gregorio, 1890
, has nomenclatural priority over
Polystira
Woodring, 1928
, were these names to be considered synonymous. The
Polystira
clade is large enough in terms of numbers of species and conchologically diverse (=disparate) enough for future systematic subdivision to be appropriate. We are working on providing detailed hypotheses of the phylogenetic relationships within the
Polystira
clade based on an integrative taxonomy combining shell morphological, molecular phylogenetic and other available comparative systematic data (Rawlings et al. 2003; Todd & Rawlings 2003). Only after the
type
species of fossil genus-level taxa have been accommodated within a phylogenetic framework will we be able to confidently and accurately assign the available generic/subgeneric names to individual subclades within the
Polystira
clade.
We use the term
Polystira
clade because this is the most widely used genus-rank name for Recent species and because our own work has started with establishing the inter-relationships of Recent species. Currently, we are still extending our studies backwards in geological time to encompass species more usually assigned to
Pleuroliria
and to establish the relationship of the
Polystira
clade to other turrids, both living and extinct.