Cardiotrachia and Rachita – two new land snail genera from the East Kimberley, Western Australia (Eupulmonata: Camaenidae)

Abstract

Two new monotypic camaenid genera Cardiotrachia gen. nov. and Rachita gen. nov. are described for the two new species C. bastionensis n. sp. from the Bastion Ranges and R. carltonensis n. sp. from the Onslow Hills, respectively, in the East Kimberley, Western Australia. Cardiotrachia is characterized by distinct anatomical features, such as a small shell devoid of macroscopic sculpture with a peculiarly heart-shaped aperture and a coiled penis without epiphallus. Rachita is characterized by a shell flatter than that of any other camaenids of similar size from the East Kimberley, a lacking epiphallus and a complex penial wall sculpture. A mitochondrial DNA phylogeny corroborates the recognition of Cardiotrachia and Rachita as distinct genera with respect to other confamilial taxa from north-western Australia.

http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:60FA3A41-6A3B-4EBE-8B05-B7960B7EEEBF

Key words:

• Australian Monsoon Tropics
• Helicoidea
• mitochondrial phylogeny
• morphology
• taxonomy

Acknowledgements

Vince Kessner (Adelaide River) and Michael Braby (Darwin) prepared and conducted the fieldwork, thereby providing the foundations for this work. Special thanks are due to Morgan Laudine (Newcastle) and Martin Püschel (Berlin) for producing illustrations of genitalia, and to Sue Lindsay (AM) for conducting the SEM work.

Associate Editor: Adrian Glover

Additional information

Funding

This work has been made possible through financial support from the Australian Government [ABRS grants RF210-05 and RF 211-10 to FK].