Helix novarae Pfeiffer, 1861

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 : 97

Helix novarae Pfeiffer, 1861

Pfeiffer, 1861. Malakozoologische Blätter, 8: 148.

Type material: Listed by Suter (1913b: 619) as being in the ‘ K.K. Hofmuseum, Vienna’, but not found during a search of the collections in the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien in 2014 (Anita Eschner pers. comm.). As noted in the Introduction (above), the type material may have gone to the Pommersches Museum, Stettin [= Szczecin], after Pfeiffer’s death in 1877, in which case it has probably been lost or destroyed .

Type locality: ‘ Bay of Islands’ ( Pfeiffer 1861: 149) .

Remarks: There are no published illustrations of type material of this species. The original description was based on one or more specimens obtained by Ferdinand von Hochstetter during his visit to New Zealand in 1858– 1859. Helix novarae Pfeiffer, 1861 is the type species of Suterella Iredale, 1915 , by original designation. Pfeiffer (1861: 149) noted that this species was allied to Helix remota Benson from St Helena, the latter name being a junior synonym of Helix alliaria Miller, 1822 [= Oxychilus alliarius Miller, 1822 ] (e.g., Tryon 1886: 145; Crowley & Pain 1977: 565). Hutton (1884b: 205) suggested that the type material of Pfeiffer’s species may have been a juvenile of Helix cellaria Müller, 1774 [= Oxychilus cellarius (Müller, 1774) ]. As noted in the entry for Helix corneafulva Pfeiffer, 1861 (above), O. cellarius was possibly present in the Bay of Islands at the time of Hochstetter’s visit to New Zealand. Helix novarae Pfeiffer, 1861 is undoubtedly a non-native, adventive zonitoid species, probably of northern hemisphere origin. It may be a junior subjective synonym of O. cellarius (Müller, 1774) ], but in the absence of type material it is not possible to reliably determine its identity or geographic origin.

Systematic position: Not determined.

Distribution: Not known.