Melanopsis defensa elongata Gillet & Marinescu, 1971 non Ferussac , 1823

Neubauer, Thomas A., Harzhauser, Mathias, Kroh, Andreas, Elisavet, Georgopoulou & Mandic, Oleg, 2014, Replacement names and nomenclatural comments for problematic species-group names in Europe's Neogene freshwater Gastropoda. Part 2, ZooKeys 429, pp. 13-46 : 29

Taxon classification Animalia ORDO FAMILIA

Melanopsis defensa elongata Gillet & Marinescu, 1971 non Ferussac, 1823

Melanopsis defensa elongata Gillet and Marinescu, 1971: 55, pl. 23, figs 38-48 [non Melanopsis elongata Férussac, 1823].

Type locality.

Rădmănești, Romania.

Age.

Late Miocene (Late Pannonian, Transdanubian sensu Sacchi and Horváth 2002; Geary et al. 2010).

Holotype.

Gillet and Marinescu (1971) designated the specimen illustrated by Fuchs (1870a, pl. 14, fig. 79) as holotype. According to the inventory books of the Natural History Museum Vienna the material should be stored there, but despite great effort it could not be located.

Discussion.

This case represents another primary homonym of Melanopsis elongata Férussac, 1823. Here some specific notes are necessary to elucidate the history of this taxon. Gillet and Marinescu (1971) erroneously linked the holotype of Melanopsis defensa to the variety trochiformis Fuchs, 1870 ( Fuchs 1870a, pl. 14, figs 77-78), who explicitly separated these two specimens from the typical form ( Fuchs 1870a, p. 354). Since Fuchs did not denote a holotype, all material studied by him, except the two specimens determined as trochiformis, are syntypes of Melanopsis defensa defensa . It was unwise, though nomenclaturally correct as the nominal subspecies was still based on several (not illustrated) syntypes, to assign the new name elongata to the remaining figure of Melanopsis defensa in Fuchs (1870a, pl. 14, fig. 79). If, however, a lectotype would be designated from Fuchs's original material and one would choose the figured specimen (pl. 14, fig. 79) as such, Melanopsis defensa elongata would become an objective synonym of Melanopsis defensa defensa . In conclusion, we avoid introducing a replacement name because of the obvious misapprehension of Gillet and Marinescu (1971) and synonymize Melanopsis defensa elongata with Melanopsis defensa defensa .

A part of the material of Melanopsis defensa defensa in Gillet and Marinescu (1971, pl. 23, fig. 10) was later separated as the new species Melanopsis lebedai by Lueger (1980, p. 104).