Michael Hollmann wrote:
>
> Michael Hoelling asked about the reasons why the time-honed genus Lunatia
> Gray, 1847 should be replaced by the genus Euspira Agassiz in J. Sowerby,
> 1838.
> Well, as the authorship dates show, Euspira has some nine years precedence
> over Lunatia. Of course, this will be of consequence only if those two genera
> are in fact based on the same generic concept. How can this be verified? The
> answer is, if the type species designated to "represent" these two genera are
> congeneric, then the older name takes precedence and the younger one slips
> into synonymy.
> So the question now has been moved to another level: Are the type species of
> Euspira and Lunatia congeneric? If the type species of the two genera were the
> same species, things obviously would be easy: the junior genus would be an
> objective synonym of the older one. If they are not, as is the case here,
> things become considerably more complicated.
> The type species of Lunatia is Natica ampullaria Sowerby (which is a synonym
> of the well-known Western Atlantic species Natica heros Say, 1822), and was
> originally designated by Gray when he proposed the genus in 1847.
> The type species of Euspira is the fossil species Natica glaucinoides J.
> Sowerby, 1812 (a synonym of Natica labellata Lamarck, 1804) which was
> subsequently (in 1883) designated by Bucquoy, Dautzenberg & Dollfus.
> Are these two type species congeneric? When Agassiz erected the genus Euspira
> in 1838 in his annotated German translation of J. Sowerby's famous "The
> Mineral Conchology of Great Britain", he gave the following definition [I
> translated this from the German original]:
>
> "Those species of Natica which are distinctly conical with clearly visible
> whorls and which do not have a spiral funicle in the umbilicus form a special
> devision of the genus which I call Euspira....."
>
> This definition of Euspira as well as the figures by J. Sowerby obviously fit
> perfectly the characteristics of a typical Lunatia such as its type species
> "heros Say, 1822". The first one to recognize this was Stoliczka in 1868 (Mem.
> Geol. Surv. India 5: 296).  William H. Dall in 1908 (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool.
> Harvard 43: 334) and 1909 (U.S. Geol. Surv. Prof. Pap. 59:87) also noted the
> congeneric nature of the two genera, as did Marincovich in his classical 1977
> revision of the northeastern Pacific Naticidae (Bull. Amer. Paleont. 70: 264).
> Finally, Alan Kabat in his 1991 paper "Classification of the Naticidae: Review
> and analysis of the supraspecifc taxa (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool. 152: 431) also
> supported this conclusion.
>
> As Michael Hoelling pointed out, Thiele (1929-1931) did not mention the genus
> Euspira. Most likely, he was not aware of this name. Other popular authors who
> do not mention Euspira may simply have followed Thiele.
> As Michael Hoelling correctly stated, Gert Lindner listed Euspira in the
> Naticinae, and Lunatia in the Polinicinae which would mean they could not be
> congeneric, being in different subfamilies. Lindner may have followed Wenz
> (1938-1944) in this assignment. Wenz gave no explanation or justification for
> his decision and may not have been aware of the proposed synonymity of Lunatia
> and Euspira. By the way, in addition to Euspira Gert Lindner also listed the
> genus Payraudeautia in the Naticinae (at least in the 1982 edition of his book
> which I consulted). This is clearly incorrect as the type species of
> Payraudeautia, the common Mediterranean species P. intricata Donovan, 1804,
> has a horny operculum, proving that the species definitely belongs into the
> Polinicinae. Since Gert is on Conch-L, he might want to comment on this.
>
> To summarize, when one goes back to the original descriptions and figures I
> think there can be little doubt that the diagnoses of Euspira and Lunatia
> pertain to the same group of species, making them congeneric. Therefore,
> Euspira Agassiz in J. Sowerby, 1838 should be the correct generic assignment
> for all species formerly included in Lunatia Gray, 1847, the latter thus
> becoming a subjective junior synonym.
>
> Michael Hollmann
>
> N.B.: As a further complication, several different editions of Agassiz's
> German translation of J. Sowerby's "The Mineral Conchology of Great Britain"
> appear to exist, which all have slightly different title pages and publication
> dates. Alan Kabat noted that the earliest edition actually was published in
> 1837 [July, 25] rather than in 1838.
> Thus, the correct designation should be "Euspira Agassiz in J. Sowerby, 1837",
> which gives Euspira a full 10 years precedence over Lunatia Gray, 1847.
>
>      ******************************************
>      Dr. Michael Hollmann
>      Goerdelerweg 17
>      D-37075 Goettingen
>      GERMANY
>      Tel.:  (home)   (49)-551-22356
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>      ****
 
 
 
If it's OK with all of you, maybe I'll just continue calling them Moon
Shells.
 
MICHAEL PENZINER
White Plains, NY