Helix buccinella Reeve, 1852

Brook, Fred J. & Ablett, Jonathan D., 2019, Type material of land snails (Mollusca: Gastropoda) described from New Zealand by taxonomists in Europe and North America between 1830 and 1934, and the history of research on the New Zealand land snail fauna from 1824 to 1917, Zootaxa 4697 (1), pp. 1-117 : 30-31

Helix buccinella Reeve, 1852

Pl. 3, fig. E

Reeve, (1851–1854) 1852. Conchologia iconica, 7: species 821, pl. 133 fig. 821.

Type material: Syntypes (6), NHMUK 1996017 (dry shell material); ex. Mus. Cuming (Acc. no. 1829) .

Label details: ‘N. Zeland’.

Type locality: ‘New Zealand’ (Reeve 1852 [in 1851–1854]: species 821).

Previous illustrations of type material: Reeve (1852 [in 1851–1854]: pl. 133 fig. 821).

Remarks: Helix buccinella Reeve, 1852 and H. gamma Pfeiffer, 1853 are based on the same type material, which H. Cuming had obtained from the Australian-based naturalist Frederick Strange. Pfeiffer evidently intended to publish the original description of this species in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London issue for 1851 (see Reeve 1852 [in 1851–1854]: species 821; Pfeiffer 1853a: 100), but publication was delayed until 1854 ( Pfeiffer 1854a: 57), and was pre-empted by Reeve (1852 [in 1851–1854]) [note that the publication date of ‘ October 1851 ’ listed for plate 133 of Reeve (1851 –1854) is presumed to be an error, as the immediately preceding and following plates were dated ‘ October 1852 ’ (see Petit 2007: table 3)]. Patula sylvia Hutton, 1883 was listed as a junior synonym of H. buccinella by Suter (1913b: 714) and subsequent authors, but our re-examination of type material indicates that although the two appear to be congeneric, they are morphologically distinct and not conspecific. Similarly, Patula infecta var. alpestris Suter, 1891 was listed as a junior synonym of H. buccinella Reeve, 1852 by Climo (1969a: 209) and subsequent authors, but our re-examination of type material indicates that these two taxa are also morphologically distinct and not conspecific. The former is treated here as Cavellia alpestris (Suter, 1891) .

Current Taxonomy: Listed as Cavellia buccinella (Reeve, 1852) by Solem et al. (1981: 477) and Spencer et al. (2009: 215).

Distribution: New Zealand; North Island and northern South Island (AIM and NMNZ collection records). Previous records from the southern South Island and Chatham Islands (e.g., Climo 1969a; Wallace 1977; Powell 1979; Pugh & Scott 2002) were based on misidentifications.