A critical review of Antarctic Conoidea (Neogastropoda)

ABSTRACT

The Antarctic Conoidean fauna is critically reviewed based on published data and specimens in the collections of the USNM, IORAS and MNHN. Forty-two species and subspecies of the superfamily Conoidea are recorded as occurring within the Antarctic Convergence (excluding the fauna of the Kerguelen Islands) and are attributed to 14 genera and seven families. These include the new taxa: Antarctospira n. gen. (type species—Leucosyrinx badenpowelli Dell, 1990); Drilliola antarctica n. sp.; Pleurotomella (Pleutoromella) tippetti n. sp.; Pleurotomella (Anomalotomella) petiti n. sp.; Xanthodaphne pastorinoi n. sp. Aforia watsoni is introduced as a new name for Pleurotoma (Surcula) lepta Watson, 1881, non Pleurotoma lepta Edwards, 1861. A lectotype is designated for Conorbella antarctica (Strebel, 1908). New combinations are also proposed. Antarctospira badenpowelli (Dell, 1990), n. comb. (previously assigned to Leucosyrinx); Antarctospira principalis (Thiele, 1912), n. comb. (previously assigned to Typhlomangelia); Antarctospira mawsoni (Powell, 1958), n. comb. (previously assigned to Leucosyrinx); Typhlodaphne paratenoceras (Powell, 1951), n. comb. (previously assigned to Leucosyrinx); Belalora weirichi (Engl, 2008), n. comb. (previously assigned to Oenopota); Pleurotomella (Anomalotomella) innocentia (Dell, 1990), n. comb. (previously assigned to Typhlodaphne); Pleurotomella (Anomalotomella) nipri (Numanami, 1996), n. comb. (previously assigned to Typhlodaphne); Xanthodaphne raineri (Engl, 2008), n. comb. (previously assigned to Pleurotomella); Aforia hedleyi (Dell, 1990), n. comb. (previously assigned to Pontiothauma). The majority of Antarctic conoidean taxa have hypodermic marginal teeth. Although there is a similar relative abundance of conoideans in Antarctic waters to that seen in other well-studied faunas, the low number of conoideans is indicative of the general impoverishment of the gastropod fauna in the region. Fourteen percent (2 of 14) of conoidean genera that occur within the Antarctic Convergence are endemic to Antarctic waters, as are 82% (34 of 42) of the species. Most taxa have very broad bathymetric ranges, some extending from bathyal to hadal depths. The greatest species diversity was at bathyal depths.

KEYWORDS:

• Antarctic Convergence
• bathymetric distribution
• endemism
• new name
• new species

Acknowledgements

This publication resulted from several visiting curatorships of YIK to USNM supported by the United States Antarctic Program grants. YIK is greatly indebted to the staff of the Department of Invertebrate Zoology of USNM, especially to Paul Greenhall and Chad Walter for assistance and arranging loans. We want to thank Dr Mathias Glaubrecht from Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin for the loan of Thiele’s type specimens and to Andrea Salvador from NHMUK for help with the types of R.B. Watson and A.W.B. Powell. Dr Alexander Fedosov from the A.N. Severtzov Institute of Ecology and Evolution kindly photographed some of the types in NHMUK, N.N. Surovenkova from the same institute assisted in photographing radulae on the scanning electron microscope.

Many records in the USNM collections, including material from which DNA sequence data were generated, were collected on two research cruises aboard the RV Lawrence M. Gould (NSF OPP-0338218 to Dr Kenneth Halanych).

Drs A. Gebruk and E. Krylova kindly provided access to the material collected by Russian research vessels in Antarctica, which is stored in IORAS.

We are greatly indebted to the reviewers of the paper—Dr Bruce Marshall and Dr Alan Beu for many valuable suggestions and corrections, as well to Bruce Marshall, Doris Sheaman and Winston Ponder for meticulous editing that led to great improvements in the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCiD

Y.I. Kantor http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3209-4940

Additional information

Funding

This work is partially financed by the Grant of RFBR No. 14-04-00481 (PI Yu.I. Kantor), by the Service de Systématique Moléculaire (UMS 2700 CNRS-MNHN) and by the project CONOTAX, funded by the French ANR (grant number ANR-13-JSV7-0013-01). The authors also thank Barbara Buge, Julien Brisset and Laetitia Aznar-Cormano for their help in curating the specimens.

The CAML-CEAMARC cruises of RSV Aurora Australis and TRV Umitaka Maru (IPY project no.53) were supported by the Australian Antarctic Division, the Japanese Science Foundation, the French polar institute IPEV (ICOTA and REVOLTA programmes), the CNRS, the MNHN and the ANR (White Project ANTFLOCKs USAR no.07-BLAN-0213-01 directed by Guillaume Lecointre).