I have forwarded your question to Mr. Markus Lussi and he replied to my private e-mail. This server at my work was down for a couple of days and I shall forward his message from home to you tonight. I didn't have your e-mail address at home.

Regards,
Kobie from South Africa

>>> [log in to unmask] 05/07/02 03:09PM >>>
Calling all Columbellidae experts:

I never received any comment about my question of  4/21 regarding the difference between Mitrella elegans (Dall, 1871) from West Mexico (number 1237 in Keen) and Mitrella (Acira) elegans (H. Adams, 1860) from South Africa (number 404 in Steyn & Lussi).

Does anyone have the correct genera?

John

At 07:21 PM 5/6/02 -0400, you wrote:

ConchL'ers:

The two biospecies are clearly distinct.  They are confamilial (Columbellidae), belong to the same subfamily (Pyreninae), but belong to different genera (by modern standards).

Modern authors place the Gmelin taxon (originally Voluta ocellata) in Mitrella Risso, 1826 (Nitidella is a different group) and the Link taxon in the genus Pyrene Röding, 1798 (as did Link, one of the few malacologists to adopt Röding's nomina before the twentieth century - perhaps for patriotic reasons) .  Thus we have (properly punctuated):

Mitrella ocellata (Gmelin, 1791)
Pyrene ocellata Link, 1807