Turbo tautiranus Curtiss, 1938

Low, Martyn E. Y. & Tan, Siong Kiat, 2014, On the identities of the molluscan names described in A Short Zoology of Ta h i t i in the Society Islands by Anthony Curtiss in 1938 (Mollusca: Cephalopoda, Gastropoda), Zootaxa 3764 (3), pp. 394-400 : 397

Turbo tautiranus Curtiss, 1938 , a synonym of Littoraria coccinea (Gmelin, 1791)

Original description (p. 190). “The Tahiti periwinkle is three-quarters of an inch long. The animal is like a snail, but has no knob-like eyes on the end of its two horns. Its shell is spiral, the spine coming to a point. The opening is like half a circle in shape, and not toothed. The animal, when it goes in, closes the entrance with the brown membrane, not very thick, at the bottom of its foot. The shell is smooth, without furrows or keels, and its color is grayish-white, somewhat washed with reddish. This shares with many others the Indian name of pupu, and is found on rocks by the sea-side where the waves beat. ( Turbo tautiranus . (In the sea, near Tautira.))”.

Identity. The description of the shell size, animal and shell characteristics (i.e. semi-circular aperture, and smooth shell that is greyish-white with a reddish tint), operculum, and habitat (on rocks by the sea-side where the waves beat) lead us to identify the “Tahiti periwinkle” with Littoraria coccinea (Gmelin, 1791) , a species distributed from the Cocos (Keeling) Islands to Eastern Polynesia and Hawaii ( Rosewater 1970).