Meijeriella Bank, 1985

Guemues, Burcin Askim & Neubert, Eike, 2012, New taxa of terrestrial molluscs from Turkey (Gastropoda, Pristilomatidae, Enidae, Hygromiidae, Helicidae), ZooKeys 171, pp. 17-37 : 22

Genus Meijeriella Bank, 1985

Meijeriella Bank, 1985, Heldia 1 (2): 41.

Borlumastus Örstan & Yildirim, 2004, Basteria, 68: 126.

Type species.

Meijeriella canaliculata Bank, 1985 (by original designation).

In their paper, Örstan and Yıldırım (2004) used the following autapomorphic characters to separate their new genus Borlumastus : presence of a single palatal tooth, and secondly, attachment position of the penial retractor muscle.

However, presence or absence of the palatal, columellar, and parietal teeth cannot be used for characterization of genera within the family Enidae . For example, Pseudochondrula tetrodon (Mortillet, 1854) displays a number of variations in its apertural dentition, there are specimens without teeth as well as specimens with up to four teeth, sometimes to be found mixed up in the same population. On the other hand, browsing the species currently affiliated to Euchondrus Boettger, 1883 it becomes clear that in this genus, species may differ in their dentition, but still are considered to belong to the same genus. Thus it is obvious that presence or absence of a single tooth does not qualify as autapomorphic character on genus-level taxa.

The attachment position of the penial retractor muscle on the male genital system is said to differ in Borlumastus from that in Meijeriella , because in the latter genus, the muscle would attach at the epiphallus. Having investigated the genital anatomy of both species, Meijeriella canaliculata and Meijeriella frivaldskyi from Turkey it can be said that the muscles embraces the distal end of the epiphallus including a small area of the terminal part of the proximal penis section. This makes clear that there is virtually no difference in the attachment position of this muscle in all three species. For these reasons we see no argument left to keep the genus Borlumastus , and relegate it into the synonymy of Meijeriella Bank, 1985.

Remark: It has been argued that the generic name Meijeriella Bank, 1985 is preoccupied by Meyeriella Krausse, 1917 (Arch. Naturgesch., 82, A1: 95, in Hymenoptera ). However, genus-level names are ruled by §56.1 and §56.2 ICZN clearly stating "Even if the difference between two genus-group names is only one letter, they are not homonyms". Thus, Meijeriella has to be kept as a valid genus.