Buchema Corea , 1934

Morassi, Mauro & Bonfitto, Antonio, 2013, Four new African turriform gastropods (Mollusca: Conoidea), Zootaxa 3710 (3), pp. 271-280 : 276

Genus Buchema Corea, 1934

Type species: Carinodrillia (Buchema) tainoa Corea, 1934

Remarks. Corea (1934) proposed Buchema as a subgenus of Carinodrillia Dall, 1919 , a genus represented in tropical Americas, with Carinodrillia (Buchema) tainoa Corea, 1934 , originally described from Puerto Rico, selected as type species. The author described five new species and recognised Drillia interpleura Dall & Simpson, 1901 as belonging to Buchema . Later, Fargo (1953: 375) proposed Carinodrillia (Buchema) pylonia Fargo, 1953 from the Pliocene of Florida but the species has recently been referred to the genus Compsodrillia Woodring, 1928 by Scarponi & Della Bella (2004: 65). In his revision, Powell (1966: 105) retained the systematics proposed by Corea (1934) and provided a list of Buchema species. McLean (1971b) used Buchema as a full genus and assigned Pleurotoma granulosa Sowerby, 1834 to the genus. Additional Buchema species were recognised by Van Regteren Altena (1975) and Maes (1983). The WoRMS register of marine species (Appeltans et al., 2012) lists eleven Buchema species of which the Buchema dichroma Kilburn, 1988 represents the sole species reported from Africa. Previous authors (Abbott, 1974; Fernandes et al., 1995; Kilburn, 1988) noted the morphological resemblance between Buchema Corea, 1934 and Crassispira Swainson, 1840 , suggesting the possibility that the two taxa may prove synonyms. However, species assigned to Buchema differ widely from Pleurotoma bottae Kiener, 1839 , type species of Crassispira , in their usually smaller dimensions, stronger spiral sculpture, different structure of the anal sinus (i.e. presence of a parietal nodule restricting entrance to anal sinus), shorter aperture and vividly patterned shells. Buchema is characterized by the presence of a secondary teleoconch sculpture consisting of both axial and spiral threads, which gives the shell surface a “cloth-like pattern” (see fig. M and Corea, 1934: plate 3). A further morphological character potentially useful in distinguishing Buchema from Crassispira is the protoconch sculpture. In both genera the protoconch is initially smooth then developing stout axial ribs but in Buchema the terminal portion is typically sculptured by thinner axial ribs. Corea (1934) described the protoconch of Buchema as follows: “the early whorls smooth, succeeded by a finely axially, closely lirate portion that passes into an axially slender ribbed part, which in turn passes into the postnuclear sculpture”. In their recent classification of Conoidea, Bouchet et al. (2011) retained Buchema and Crassispira as distinct genera belonging to different families. Kilburn (1988) proposed the genus Psittacodrillia which is morphologically very similar to Buchema but differs in lacking a distinct subsutural cord, labial varix and fasciole. The new species from Somalia described below shares with American members of Buchema all diagnostic morphological characters and is accordingly considered the first eastern Africa record of the genus Buchema .