Montenegrina apfelbecki (Sturany, 1907)

Feher, Zoltan & Szekeres, Miklos, 2016, Taxonomic revision of the rock-dwelling door snail genus Montenegrina Boettger, 1877 (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Clausiliidae), ZooKeys 599, pp. 1-137 : 8

Taxon classification Animalia Stylommatophora Clausiliidae

Montenegrina apfelbecki (Sturany, 1907) Fig. 11A

Clausilia apfelbecki Sturany, 1907: 233. - Wohlberedt 1909: 101.

Delima (Delima) apfelbecki - Sturany and Wagner 1915: 74, plate 16, fig. 91.

Delima (Albanodelima) apfelbecki - Wagner 1924: 120. - Wagner 1925: 67, plate 1, fig. 12. (genital anatomy).

Montenegrina apfelbecki - Nordsieck 1972: 28. - Zilch 1981: 126, plate 14, fig. 30. - Nordsieck 2009: 75.

Diagnosis.

Shell small, light corneous. All whorls smooth, glossy. Neck inflexed, densely striate. Basal and peripheral crests well visible. Peristome detached, ovoid, with simple margin. Lamellae superior and spiralis do not overlap. In front view lamella inferior moderately emerged, weakly-bent subcolumellaris not visible. Lunella dorsal-dorsolateral. Basalis mostly absent, rarely residual and separate from the lunella. Subclaustralis very short, sulcalis well developed. Anterior plica superior absent. Clausilium plate almost entirely visible through the aperture.

Dimensions

(in mm). Hs: 12.6-16.0, Ws: 3.4-4.2 (syntypes NHMW 41166).

Type locality.

"Mal i Shêit bei Oroshi, Merdita, in einer Höhe von zirka 1500 m" = Albania, Mt. Shënt, ca. 1500 m.

Type material.

Type locality, leg. Buljubašić, 1905, syntypes (NHMW 41166/pl., NHMW-E 38290/2, NHMW-K 9368/3, SMF 32771/2, SMF 201619); same data, ex Oberwimmer, syntypes (NHMW 65490/2), same data, ex Käufel, syntypes (NHMW 70409/3).

Distribution.

Mount Shënt (Mali i Shëntit) in Northern Albania (Fig. 12).

Remarks.

Of this taxon only the type series are known. The material was collected during the 1905 expedition organized by Rudolf Sturany, then curator of the Mollusc Collection at NHMW. Sturany was accompanied by Viktor Apfelbeck, curator of the entomological collection at the National Museum of Sarajevo, and Latif Buljubašić, Apfelbeck’s assistant. After a few days of joint work in the Oroshi area Buljubašić was left alone for two months to explore the surrounding Shënt, Munellë and Koritnik mountains ( Sturany 1905). During that period Buljubašić acquired a large and diverse invertebrate material, but Montenegrina apfelbecki was found only at one site. This suggests that the species was highly local, although the discovered population could have been quite large. In 2014 a thorough search by the first author over the plateau of the Shënt Mountain, along its western slope and northern side toward the Mount Zebë, failed to re-discover the type locality of this species ( Angyal et al. 2015). Apparently it is not frequent in the Shënt Mountain, and may only have a very narrow range.