Melanopsis, Glöer & Pešić, 2012

Gloeer, Peter & Pesic, Vladimir, 2012, The freshwater snails (Gastropoda) of Iran, with descriptions of two new genera and eight new species, ZooKeys 219, pp. 11-61 : 15-16

publication ID	https://dx.doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.219.3406
publication LSID	lsid:zoobank.org:pub:35A0EBEF-8157-40B5-BE49-9DBD7B273918
persistent identifier	https://treatment.plazi.org/id/90E944E7-242B-D076-C200-EF0753CA2440
treatment provided by	ZooKeys by Pensoft
scientific name	Melanopsis
status	sp.

Treatment

Melanopsis sp. Fig. 11d View Figure 11

Records from Iran.

Kerman Province (as Melanopsis variabilis : Martens 1874); Seistan and Baluchistan Province (as Melanopsis deserticola : Annandale and Prashad 1919); Isfahan and Yazd provinces ( Biggs 1937); Fars province (as Melanopsis buccinoidea variabilis : Starmühlner and Edlauer 1957, as Melanopsis praerosa : Starmühlner 1961); Khuzestan Province ( Chu et al. 1968, as Melanopsis praerosa : Massoud and Hedayeti-Far 1979, Manssorian 2001).

New records.

Mazandaran Province: IR02-05 [11 ad., 48 juv.]; Khorrasan Province: IR64-05 [12 ad., 39 juv.]; IR79-05 [3 ad., 4 juv.]; IR78a-05 [8 ad., 15 juv.]; IR78c-05 [2 ex.]; Fars Province: IR17-07 [2 ex]; Hormozgan Province: IR19-11 [21 ex.].

Associated species.

Galba truncatula , Theodoxus fluviatilis , Planorbis intermixtus , Grossuana sp., Farsithyra farsensis .

Remark.

The species of this genus have a high morphological plasticity and many species have been described. Glaubrecht (1993) tried to solve the complicated taxonomy by proposing to consider all circum-Mediterranean Melanopsis spp. as being part of one ‘superspecies’, Melanopsis praemorsa . However, we follow Neubert (1998) who believes that this approach does not solve the problem. In recent literature the ‘superspecies’ notion tends to be abandoned and the former species names are being reinstituted (see: Heller et al. 2005; Van Damme et al. 2010. This means that the smooth unsculptured species Melanopsis praemorsa sensu stricto (terra typica: Spain) is actually a western Mediterranean species and that unsculptured morphs from the Levant belong to other species, such as Melanopsis buccinoidea , Melanopsis ammonis , Melanopsis dircaena , Melanopsis khabourensis and Melanopsis meiostoma ( Heller et al. 2005). Those from Mesopotamia have been described under Melanopsis variabilis , Melanopsis deserticola , Melanopsis buccinoidea and Melanopsis praemorsa . Further study is necessary to establish under which name or names the Iranian populations should be placed.