Plectopylis hanleyi Godwin-Austen, 1879b

Pall-Gergely, Barna, Budha, Prem B., Naggs, Fred, Backeljau, Thierry & Asami, Takahiro, 2015, Review of the genus Endothyrella Zilch, 1960 with description of five new species (Gastropoda, Pulmonata, Plectopylidae), ZooKeys 529, pp. 1-70 : 45

Taxon classification Animalia Pulmonata Plectopylidae

Plectopylis hanleyi Godwin-Austen, 1879b

Plectopylis hanleyi 1879b Plectopylis hanleyi Godwin-Austen: The Annals and Magazine of Natural History, 5 (4): 164. [ “Sikkim?”].

Plectopylis hanleyi 1897c Plectopylis hanleyi , - Gude: Science Gossip, 4: 11.

Plectopylis hanleyi 1899a Plectopylis hanleyi , - Gude: Science Gossip, 5: 240.

Plectopylis hanleyi 1899c Plectopylis (Endothyra) hanleyi , - Gude: Science Gossip, 6: 148.

Plectopylis hanleyi 1899d Plectopylis (Endothyra) hanleyi , - Gude: Science Gossip, 6: 175, 176.

Plectopylis hanleyi 1914b Plectopylis (Endothyra) hanleyi , - Gude: The Fauna of British India …: 73, 77.

Original description.

"Shell sinistral, depressedly conoid, openly umbilicated, probably hirsute when young. Sculpture coarse, irregular, transverse ridges. Colour uniform ochraceous. Spire conoidal; apex blunt, smooth. Suture well marked. Whorls six, close-wound, convex. Aperture semicircular, diagonal; peristome somewhat thickened, white, with a thin callus on the parietal margin, not to the extent of a ridge. Size - major diam. 5.5, minor diam. 5.0, alt. 3.0 millims. Parietal vertical lamina simple; palatal plicæ in two rows, four long in front, four short behind, and one basal long. The shell is very distinct; it has somewhat the form of Plectopylis plectostoma , but is not so angular on the periphery, while the internal plication is quite different, besides being so very much smaller in size."

Remarks.

In the original description Godwin-Austen (1879b) wrote that the holotype is "in the collection of Mr. Sylvanus Hanley". In Godwin-Austen’s copy of Gude (1914, page 77), Godwin-Austen has written "In my collection". The holotype, however, was not found in the collection of the NHM. Only one NHM specimen was found labelled Plectopylis hanleyi , and this is annotated with a question mark ("Sikkim, Rarhichu, H. H. Godwin-Austen colln."). However, this specimen is very similar to the type specimen of Plectopylis blanda , and is not identical with the single shell in Godwin-Austen’s (1879b) description, because it has only 4.75 whorls (the holotype of Plectopylis hanleyi has six). Moreover, Godwin-Austen (1879b) described the palatal lamellation, whereas the above mentioned specimen is intact, therefore the inner lamellae and plicae could not be observed. Some parts of Hanley’s collection are housed in the Leeds Museum and in the Manchester Museum. The former were contacted and confirmed that the holotype was not deposited there. The catalogue of the type specimens of the Manchester Museum (McGhee 2008) did not list Plectopylis hanleyi . Since the holotype of Plectopylis hanleyi seems to be lost, and the description is not sufficient to diagnose the species (although it matches with Endothyrella blanda ), Plectopylis hanleyi is considered to be a nomen dubium.