Turricaspia spica

Wesselingh, Frank, Poorten, Jan Johan ter, Kijashko, Pavel, Albrecht, Christian, Anistratenko, Olga Yu, Frolov, Pavel, Gándara, Alberto Martinez, Gittenberger, Arjan, Gogaladze, Aleksandre, Mikhail Karpinsky, Popa, Luis, Sands, Arthur F, Vandendorpe, Justine & Wilke, Thomas, 2019, Mollusc species from the Pontocaspian region - an expert opinion list, ZooKeys 827, pp. 31-124 : 92-93

Turricaspia spica (Eichwald, 1855)

*1855 Paludina spica Eichwald: 303-304, pl. 10, figs 8, 9.

?1992 Turricaspia spica (Eichw.). - Anistratenko and Prisyazhniuk: 18, fig. 2d.

2006 Turricaspia spica (Eichwald, 1855). - Kantor and Sysoev: 110, pl. 49, fig. F.

2009 Turricaspia cf. spica (Eichwald, 1855). - Filippov and Riedel: 70, 72, 74, 76, fig. 4e, f.

2016 Turricaspia spica (Eichwald, 1855). - Vinarski and Kantor: 250.

Status. Accepted Pontocaspian species.

Type locality. Ostrov Chechen’ (island in NW Caspian Sea), Dagestan, Russia.

Distribution. Endemic to the Caspian Sea. Occurred also in the Aral Sea during the Holocene ( Filippov and Riedel 2009) but now extinct there. It has been reported from the Holocene of Danube Delta ( Anistratenko and Prisyazhniuk 1992) (see below).

Taxonomic notes. As the oldest described species presently attributed to Turricaspia , the validity of this species is without doubt. Its identity, however, is poorly known, given the limited information and poor drawing provided by Eichwald (1855), as well as the largely diverging concepts applied by later authors (see Neubauer et al. 2018 for a detailed discussion of the matter). We have a geographic record ( Anistratenko and Prisyazhniuk 1992) that is outside the Caspian–Aral distribution range of this genus. Comparison of the Danube material with Caspian specimens suggests the identification might be correct, yet further detail study is required to assess whether the Danube record might actucally not be an unusual form of Laevicaspia lincta .

Conservation status. Not assessed.