Sorry! This morning I was still .... sleeping while I sent the message.
It was obviously intended as personal to Alfonso Pina, but I instinctively
used "Reply To" and it went to Conch-L.

I take this occasion to give some last minute info concerning this very
interesting group of coral eating neogastropods.
As Alfonso has noticed in his site, there is some growing indication that
Coralliophilinae are actually a subfamily of Muricidae, with strong
reationships with Rapaninae s.l. (thus including Ergalataxinae). We have
now some more molecular evidence from a nuclear gene (called ITS-2) both in
the sequence and in the secondary structure, supporting this view. We haev
now a good collection of alcohol preserved coralliophilines, representing a
good deal of their morphological variation (Rapa, Magilus, Rhizochilus,
Babelomurex, Latiaxis, Coralliophila, etc....). I hope to be able to
produce DNA sequences from all of them and also to work on their anatomy in
a relatively short time.

Obviously, any info/material (specimens, shells, tissue samples, data on
ecology and associatio etc......) are welcome.
All the best from Roma

Marco

=========================================================
Marco Oliverio - Evolutionary Biology PhD
Research Scientist

Dipartimento di Biologia Animale e dell'Uomo
Viale dell'Universita' 32
I-00185 Roma   ITALY

phone  +39.06.49914750
FAX    +39.06.4958259
e-mail: [log in to unmask]