Polystira

Todd, Jonathan A. & Rawlings, Timothy A., 2014, A review of the Polystira clade — the Neotropic’s largest marine gastropod radiation (Neogastropoda: Conoidea: Turridae sensu stricto), Zootaxa 3884 (5), pp. 445-491 : 451

The Polystira clade: Polystira and other names

Despite common use of the generic name Polystira , by ourselves included, a number of other genus-group names are nomenclaturally available for taxa within what we here call the “ Polystira clade”. Indeed, one of these names, Pleuroliria de Gregorio, 1890, has nomenclatural priority over Polystira Woodring, 1928 , were these names to be considered synonymous. The Polystira clade is large enough in terms of numbers of species and conchologically diverse (=disparate) enough for future systematic subdivision to be appropriate. We are working on providing detailed hypotheses of the phylogenetic relationships within the Polystira clade based on an integrative taxonomy combining shell morphological, molecular phylogenetic and other available comparative systematic data (Rawlings et al. 2003; Todd & Rawlings 2003). Only after the type species of fossil genus-level taxa have been accommodated within a phylogenetic framework will we be able to confidently and accurately assign the available generic/subgeneric names to individual subclades within the Polystira clade.

We use the term Polystira clade because this is the most widely used genus-rank name for Recent species and because our own work has started with establishing the inter-relationships of Recent species. Currently, we are still extending our studies backwards in geological time to encompass species more usually assigned to Pleuroliria and to establish the relationship of the Polystira clade to other turrids, both living and extinct.