Revisiting the Annandale malacological collection from Inle Lake, Myanmar kept in the Kyoto University Museum

ABSTRACT

Inle Lake in central Myanmar is one of the hotspots of freshwater biodiversity in Southeast Asia. A small malacological collection from the lake made by Thomas Nelson Annandale and discovered at the Kyoto University Museum, Japan was examined here. In the collection comprised of thirty specimens, nine species in seven families were identified. The collection also included four species and one subspecies which were newly described by Annandale. Two subspecies, Hydrobioides nassa lacustris Annandale, 1918 and H. n. rivulicola Annandale, 1918, were identified in a single lot. The correspondence of the shell morphology of Lamellidens ferrugineus (Annandale, 1918) between the present study and the original description indicates that the specimen is a paratype of the species. The rediscovered collection provides us with insights into the species definition of Annandale and the molluscan diversity of the lake prior to recent environmental changes.

和文摘要

京都大学総合博物館に保存されていたトーマス・ネルソン・アナンデールのミャンマー, インレー湖産淡水貝類標本の再検討を行なった. コレクションは 7 科 9 種 30 標本から構成され, アナンデールが新種記載した4種1亜種が含まれた また著者によってH. nassaのロットからアナンデールが新種記載した2亜種H. n. lacustris Annandale, 1918およびH. n. rivulicola Annandale, 1918が同定された. またL. ferrugineus は殻形態が原記載で図示された標本と一致することから, 本種のパラタイプの一つであると推測された, 本研究の標本はアナンデールの種認識への洞察を与えるほか, 近年の湖の環境悪化以前の貝類相を保存しており, 学術的に高い価値を有すると考えられる.

KEYWORDS:

• Ancient lake
• Mollusca
• morphology
• museum collection
• taxonomy

Acknowledgements

I thank Masaharu Motokawa (KUM) and Takafumi Nakano (Kyoto University; KU) for permitting examination of the collection. I thank Yusuke Fuke (KU), Jamen Uiriamu Otani, and Wai Min Thu (KU) for providing information and literature citations. I thank Yusuke Fuke for aiding the registration of photographs to ffish.asia. I appreciate the constructive comments of Hiroshi Fukuda (Okayama University), Takafumi Nakano, and an anonymous reviewer. I thank Textcheck (www.textcheck.com) for English language editing. The photographs are available at https://ffish.asia/?qcode = InleInvAnnandale.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was partly supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI grant number JP21J22917.