Dear Listers, 

Here's a year-end puzzle: Is the Hexagonal Murex one species or two? (And can anyone send me a copy of the article Murexsul pacaudi nom. nov., un nouveau nom de remplacement pour Murex hexagonus Lamarck, 1816 in Xenophora Taxonomy N° 22 - Add-on to Xenophora n° 164 - October 2018?)

According to WoRMS, Murexsul hexagonus is no longer accepted and is superceded by Murexsul pacaudi Van Hyfte & Danvin, 2018. 

Malacolog.org synonymizes Murexsul hexagonus with M. oxytatus (M. Smith, 1938). Murexsul oxytatus has (had?) been accepted as the Hexagonal Murex for a long while: see Abbott 1974, Zhang 2011, Redfern 2013 among the Caribbean reference books. Lamy & Pointier 2017 do make the distinction but without explanation.

Opinions? Explanations? 

I might need a translation of Van Hyfte & Danvin's text, I suppose.

TIA! Happy New Year!

David Kirsh
Durham, NC

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