Athleta Conrad, 1853

Merle, Didier, Pacaud, Jean-Michel, Métais, Grégoire, Bartolini, Annachiara, Lashari, Rafiq A., Brohi, Imdad A., Solangi, Sarfraz H., Marivaux, Laurent & Welcomme, Jean-Loup, 2014, Volutidae (Mollusca: Gastropoda) of the Lakhra Formation (Earliest Eocene, Sindh, Pakistan): systematics, biostratigraphy and paleobiogeography, Zootaxa 3826 (1), pp. 101-138 : 118

Genus Athleta Conrad, 1853

Type species. Voluta rarispina Lamarck, 1811 (Neogene, Europe) by subsequent designation ( Dall 1890).

Comments. 1) Many authors consider the gender of Athleta to be feminine, but it is masculine. 2) Darragh (1971) synonymised a number of genera with Athleta , among which were Volutospina Newton, 1906 , Volutopupa Dall, 1890 and Volutocorbis Dall, 1890 and recognised only two subgenera, Athleta (s.s.) and A. (Ternivoluta) Martens, 1897. However, the difference between the two subgenera used by Darragh (1971) is solely based on the multispiral versus paucispiral protoconch, a developmental difference not now considered to be of taxonomic significance, as in the Harpidae ( Merle & Pacaud 2003) or the Muricidae ( Merle et al. 2011) for example. The aim of this work is not to revise the genus Athleta and a cladistic analysis would be necessary for this revision. For instance, we prefer to continue to use provisionally Volutopupa (see Pacaud & Pons 2013), Volutocorbis and Volutospina as subgenera, because they are useful to characterize different Paleogene morphotypes.