Attiliosa caledonica ( Jousseaume, 1881 )

Houart, Roland & Héros, Virginie, 2008, Muricidae (Mollusca: Gastropoda) from Fiji and Tonga, Mémoires du Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle 196, pp. 437-480 : 452

Attiliosa caledonica ( Jousseaume, 1881)

Fig. 2H

Muricidea caledonica Jousseaume, 1881: 349 .

MATERIAL EXAMINED. — Fiji. SUVA 4: stn DW 04, 18°12’S, 178°35’E, 100-122 m, 1 dd (Fig. 2H); stn DW 08, 18°22’S, 178°02 E, 28-30 m, 1 dd; stn DW 23, 18°28’S, 177°59’E, 31-32 m, 1 dd .

DISTRIBUTION. — The Philippines, Marshall Islands, Coral Sea, New Caledonia, Fiji, Society and Tuamotu archipelagos.

REMARKS. — Attiliosa caledonica was treated as a form of Attiliosa nodulifera (Sowerby, 1841) by Vokes & D’Attilio (1982) and as a subspecies of it by Tröndlé & Houart (1992: 82). One of the distinguishing characters is the spine morphology: in A. caledonica there are 4 or 5 distinct acute spinelets on the varices of the last teleoconch whorl, whereas in Attiliosa nodulifera these spines are less acute, broader and joined together, especially P1 and P2.

We now consider A. caledonica to deserve full specific status, as both it and A. nodulifera are sympatric in the Philippines (R. Houart coll., unpublished) and even syntopic in Fiji, as both were found sharing the same habitat within the geographic range (SUVA 4 stn DW 08) with no intermediate forms.