"Assiminea" aurifera (Preston, 1912)

Rowson, B, Warren, B. H. & Ngereza, C. F., 2010, Terrestrial molluscs of Pemba Island, Zanzibar, Tanzania, and its status as an " oceanic " island, ZooKeys 70, pp. 1-39 : 11

3. "Assiminea" aurifera (Preston, 1912) Fig. 2

Assimania aurifera Preston 1912: 191-192; pl. XXXI, fig. 9

Notes.

Living indiduals were abundant in leaf litter across Pemba, including sites many kilometres from the sea or fresh water (Table 2). As the only African terrestrial assimineid, Verdcourt (2000, 2006) considered Assimania aurifera worthy of a new genus in Omphalotropinae, a group diverse on the Mascarenes and elsewhere ( Griffiths and Florens 2006). Assimania aurifera is otherwise recorded only from coastal Kenya and Unguja ( Verdcourt 2006). However, its shells are very similar to Assiminia parvula Morelet, 1877, described from Anjouan, Comoros ( Morelet 1877). Also terrestrial, Assimania parvula is widespread in the Indo-Pacific and was recorded from Aldabra by Gerlach and Griffiths (2002). Solem (1959) discussed how terrestrial assimineids could be dispersed naturally by sea although we note that Assimania aurifera is a common fossil in Pleistocene deposits in southern Tanzania ( Reuter et al. 2010). Further data are needed to resolve this. Note: Both Assimania aurifera and Assimania parvula were described under misspellings of Assiminea Fleming, 1928: Assiminia ( Morelet 1877) and Assimania ( Preston 1912). The genus Eussoia , to which Assimania aurifera has been referred, now includes only aquatic taxa ( Brown 1980).