>><snip
>
>>Some other genera (ignoring subfamilial placement):
>
>>Vasum (=Altivasum etc)
>>Tudicla
>>Tudivasum (=Tudicula)
>>Turbinella (=Xancus)
>>Ptychatractus
>>Exilia (=Benthovoluta, Surculina etc)
>>Dolicholatirus & related genera
>><snip>
>
>>Afer has been transferred on anatomical grounds to Buccinidae.
>><snip>




>Can you tell us more about Dolicholatirus? I thought it was in
>Fasciolariidae. And who moved Afer to Buccinidae?

Sure.

Bill Lyons says:
>Quite a few South African fasciolariid species are now misclassified
>generically -- I can think of five or more South African groups where this
>applies; they simply need new genera [think of "Pseudolatirus"
>clausicaudatus].
>That's being worked on by me and others. The explanation is
>long and involves zoogeography, isolation, evolution, etc. As Andrew knows
>from our personal communications, "Dolicholatirus" bairstowi is among those
>species. I've told him that most species now classified in Dolicholatirus
>belong in Turbinellidae (here the radula seems to be definitive), but the
>evidence is not available for some other unusual forms that are now lumped
>into Dolicholatirus, so caution is still required.

And:
>Afer pseudofusinus does indeed belong in Afer, a genus that was transferred
>from Turbinellidae to Buccinidae on radular characters by Fraussen & Hadorn
>(2000), Gloria Maris 38(2-3):28-42, issue for Dec. 1999 but mailed in
>January 2000.
>If you haven't seen this paper, you should do so. Those authors make
>a good case for Afer as a buccinid.  They name A. pseudofusinus for
>shells formerly misidentified by many as Fusinus boettgeri, which is
>something else entirely and is a Fusinus, at least s.l. I think their case
>is excellent that pseudofusinus belongs in the buccinid genus Afer. I have
>about 20 shells of A. pseudofusinus that I acquired as Fusinus boettgeri;
>when I saw the Fraussen & Hadorn paper, that error was obvious.

Of course going ONLY by one character (eg radula) is perhaps risky...
on shell characters Dolicholatirus looks turbinellid; Afer is one of
those ambiguous genera which on shell characters could just as well
fit in either family.

I think that these and a whole swag of could-be-either genera need
cladistic, anatomical and molecular work to sort their placement out.
--
Andrew Grebneff
Dunedin
New Zealand
Fossil preparator
<[log in to unmask]>
Seashell, Macintosh, VW/Toyota van nut

----------------------------------------------------------------------
[log in to unmask] - a forum for informal discussions on molluscs
To leave this list, click on the following web link:
http://listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=conch-l&A=1
Type your email address and name in the appropriate box and
click leave the list.
----------------------------------------------------------------------