Turricaspia elegantula

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 : 84-85

Turricaspia elegantula (Clessin & Dybowski in Dybowski, 1887)

*1887 Micromelania elegantula Clessin & Dybowski in Dybowski: 33.

1888 [ Micromelania ] elegantula n. sp. - Dybowski: 78, pl. 1, fig. 7 a–c.

2016 Turricaspia elegantula (Clessin & W. Dybowski in W. Dybowski, 1888). - Vinarski and Kantor: 247-248.

Status. Pontocaspian species, identity uncertain.

Type locality. Caspian Sea (no details).

Distribution. Endemic to the Caspian Sea. This species was mentioned from depths between 200 and 300 m in the South Caspian Basin of Azerbaijan ( Mirzoev and Alekperov 2017).

Taxonomic notes. There is considerable confusion about the identity of this species. Dybowski (1887) described and illustrated a very slender shell with a distinct whorl profile showing a straight-sided upper half and a convex lower half. In contrast, the illustrations in Logvinenko and Starobogatov (1969) suggest a similarly slender yet distorted shell with near almost sided whorls and expanded aperture. A restudy of the type material of T. elegantula show close similarities to T. spica . It differs from that species in the more slender outline and flattened whorls.

Conservation status. Not assessed.