Arion ater subsp. ruber, (Garsault, 1764)

Reise, Heike, Schwarzer, Anne-Katrin, Hutchinson, John M. C. & Schlitt, Bettina, 2020, Genital morphology differentiates three subspecies of the terrestrial slug Arion ater (Linnæus, 1758) s. l. and reveals a continuum of intermediates with the invasive A. vulgaris Moquin-Tandon, 1855, Folia Malacologica 28 (1), pp. 1-34 : 29

To find the appropriate name for the FR morphotype, we sought post-1758 descriptions of rufus -like slugs from continental Europe. We believe the name having priority is Limax ruber Garsault, 1764 , which GARSAULT (1767: 376) described as a red brown slug, larger than Helix pomatia . His illustration ( GARSAULT 1764: pl. 644; https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/id/ PPN496755056) is recognisably an Arion species on account of the position of the pneumostome. Judging from other illustrations, the pale lateral band in this illustration is merely the artist’s device to indicate the round form. No locality was given, but the neighbourhood of Paris, where Garsault worked ( WELTER-SCHULTES et al. 2008) is the most reasonable assumption. This would be compatible with occurrences of fr in that area ( ZEMANOVA et al. 2016). However, it would be desirable to designate a neotype to remove all doubt about the correspondence of ruber with the FR morphotype, as is our future intention. The name of the FR morphotype becomes

A. ater ruber ( Garsault, 1764) ,

corresponding to ROWSON et al.’s (2014a) Arion cf. empiricorum

and CHEVALLIER’ s (1972, 1974) A. rufus collingei .