Sinezona insignis ( Smith, 1910 )

Herbert, David G., 2024, The Vetigastropoda (Mollusca) of Walters Shoal, with descriptions of two new genera and thirty new species, European Journal of Taxonomy 923, pp. 1-119 : 23-24

Sinezona insignis ( Smith, 1910)

Fig. 12

Schismope insignis Smith, 1910: 208 , pl. 8 figs 4, 4a.

Type loc.: four miles south of Port Elizabeth , South Africa.

Sinezona insignis – Herbert 1986: 626, figs 10, 32–35; 2015: 13. — Geiger 2012: 468, figs 347–351.

Material examined

WALTERS SHOAL • 1 living specimen; summit area, south, stn WB05; 33°15.1S, 43°54.5′ E; depth 26–30 m; 1 May 2017; DNA tissue sample; MNHN-2013-67305 • 1 living specimen; summit area, north-west, stn WB09; 33°13.8S, 43°55.8′ E; depth 27–30 m; 4 May 2017; DNA tissue sample; MNHN-2013-67306 .

Distribution

A shallow-water species known from the south-eastern coast of South Africa and several islands in the south-eastern Atlantic. The present records from the summit area of Walters Shoal represent an eastern extension of the known range.

Remarks

Evidently a species prone to dispersal to isolated shallow-water localities by rafting on kelp holdfasts. Return eddies of the eastward flowing Agulhas Return Current may extend in the direction of Walters Shoal ( Lutjeharms & Ansorge 2001), facilitating colonisation.

Figures

Fig. 12. Sinezona insignis (Smith, 1910), Walters Shoal, stn WB09, shell diameter 0.65 mm (MNHN- IM-2013-67306).