Pitar obliquata (Hanley, 1844)

Oliver, P. Graham, Holmes, Anna, Killeen, Ian, Light, Janice & Wood, Harriet, 2004, Annotated checklist of the marine Bivalvia of Rodrigues, Journal of Natural History 38 (23), pp. 3229-3272 : 3263-3265

Pitar obliquata (Hanley, 1844)

Habitat. Burrowing close to the surface in silty coral sand, sublittoral.

Distribution. A live specimen was collected in Passe Grand Bassin but fresh shells can be found at many sandy areas of the lagoon.

FIG. 10.

Remarks. The colour pattern of this species is variable from almost uniformly white through white with faint brown markings to rayed brown, cream and white. Viader (1937) records it under four names and Lamprell and Kilburn (1999) give P. prora (Conrad, 1837) as the name for the Mascarene shells. We agree that it is not P. affinis (Gmelin, 1791) but are not convinced that Lamprell is correct. We consequently adopt Hanley’s name as the best and earliest name available.