Konophora marmorea Hutton, 1879

Brook, Fred J., Kennedy, Martyn, King, Tania M., Ridden, Johnathon, Shaw, Matthew D. & Spencer, Hamish G., 2020, Catalogue of New Zealand land, freshwater and estuarine molluscan taxa named by Frederick Wollaston Hutton between 1879 and 1904, Zootaxa 4865 (1), pp. 1-73 : 19-20

Konophora marmorea Hutton, 1879

Hutton, 1879. Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, 11 (1878): 332.

Type material. Holotype, by monotypy (Hutton 1879: 332), in Otago Museum, Dunedin, according to Suter (1913: 796), but not found by Burton (1963: 53) or during a search of the molluscan collection in 2017 (Emma Burns and Kane Fleury pers. comm.), and apparently lost.

Type locality. ‘Dunedin, in the bush’ (Hutton 1879: 332).

Remarks. The original description was based on a single individual (Hutton 1879: 332). There are no published illustrations of the holotype of Konophora marmorea , which was collected in Dunedin by the Articulator to the University of Otago Museum, Mr. F.J. Bourne ( Hutton 1884c: 206, incorrectly cited as Browne by Hutton, 1879: 332). Hutton (1882i: 158, pl. 5, figs. 1–9) subsequently described and illustrated the external morphology and anatomy of another individual of K. marmorea that he had obtained from Professor T.J. Parker of the University of Otago. This is probably the same specimen that Hutton (1898 – 1900: 10) referred to as a ‘cotype’ of Athoracophorus (Konophora) marmorea in his List of types in the Canterbury Museum. This specimen, which is here considered to be a topotype, rather than primary type material, was not found during a search of the CMNZ collection in 2017 and is apparently lost. However, the molluscan collection at CMNZ has a radula mounted on a glass slide with the label details ‘ Janella marmorea, Dunedin, XIV p. 159’ in Hutton’s handwriting (i.e., CMNZ 2017.17.120), which appears to be the same one that was illustrated by Hutton (1882i: pl. 5, fig. 8). The molluscan collection at NHMUK contains a preserved specimen from Dunedin, confusingly labelled ‘ Konophora marmorata Hutton’, which was sent from Otago Museum to London as an exhibit in the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886, and subsequently purchased by the British Museum (i.e., NHMUK 1886.11.18.22). This is possibly the specimen that Cockerell (1891b: 217) listed as ‘ Athoracophorus marmoreus forma nov. ’; he noted that this specimen “differs very much in colour from Hutton’s description of the type”, but this is not taxonomically significant, because athoracophorids typically loose pigmentation rapidly in alcohol (G.M. Barker pers. comm. 2020). Barker (2018: 216, 229) treated NHMUK 1886.11.18.22 as the holotype of K. marmorea Hutton, 1879 , but this is not consistent with Suter’s (1913: 796) statement that the type was in Otago Museum. Furthermore, neither the NHMUK molluscan accessions register nor the specimen label of NHMUK 1886.11.18.22 list the collector, refer to this as a type specimen, or state that the identification was by F.W. Hutton.

Suter (1913: 796) recorded Athoracophorus (Conophora) marmorea from several widely scattered localities throughout New Zealand. Burton (1963: 52, 53), in a review of New Zealand Athoracophoridae , noted that Konophora marmorea “is almost unrecognizable from Hutton’s description, and until the type specimen is found …. must remain incertae sedis ”. Burton (1963: 53, 54) considered that all of Suter’s (1913: 796) locality records of marmorea except for Dunedin, the type locality, referred to another species. He proposed the new name Athoracophorus suteri Burton, 1963 for A. marmorea sensu Suter, 1913 [non K. marmorea Hutton ], listed the ‘type’ as being in the Otago Museum, Dunedin, but did not provide information as to where or by whom the type material had been collected, and he did not select a type locality. No record of type material of A. suteri was found during a search of the Otago Museum collection in 2017 (Emma Burns and Kane Fleury, pers. comm.). Barker (2018: 237) treated A. suteri Burton as an objective synonym of K. marmorea Hutton, 1879 , incorrectly stating that it had the same type locality, and was inadvertently based on the same type material, as the latter species. However, this taxonomic decision does not stand scrutiny. The original description of A. suteri Burton, 1963 explicitly stated that this species is not conspecific with K. marmorea Hutton, 1879 and, contrary to Barker’s assertion, Burton (1963: 54) did not record A. suteri from Dunedin. Burton’s statement that the type material of suteri was in the Otago Museum probably was an error, but that in itself does not constitute inadvertent typification “by reference to the type of K. marmorea Hutton, 1879 ”, as suggested by Barker (2018: 237).

Taxonomy: taxon inquirendum—this study

Distribution. New Zealand; at present the only definite records of Konophora marmorea Hutton are from Dunedin (Hutton 1879, 1882i; Burton 1963).