Bensonella Pilsbry & Vanatta, 1900

Tongkerd, Piyoros, Lwin, Ngwe, Pall-Gergely, Barna, Chanabun, Ratmanee, Pholyotha, Arthit, Prasankok, Pongpun, Seesamut, Teerapong, Siriwut, Warut, Srisonchai, Ruttapon, Sutcharit, Chirasak & Panha, Somsak, 2024, Contributions of a small collection of terrestrial microsnails (Pupilloidea, Hypselostomatidae) from Myanmar with description of three new species, ZooKeys 1195, pp. 157-197 : 157

Genus Bensonella Pilsbry & Vanatta, 1900

Bifidaria (Bensonella) Pilsbry & Vanatta, 1900: 591.

Boysidia (Bensonella) . Pilsbry 1917: 198.

Boysidia (Paraboysidia) Pilsbry, 1917: 174, 201.

Type species.

Pupa plicidens Benson, 1849, by original designation.

Remarks.

The generic status and diagnostic morphological characters of the type species were recently revised ( Páll-Gergely and White 2023). The type species was believed to possess ‘hooked’ teeth, i.e., apertural barriers forming hooks that point outside of the aperture ( Pilsbry 1917). Later, when specimens without hooked apertural barriers were found in collections, normal and hooked teeth were hypothesised as intraspecific variability ( Budha and Backeljau 2017). Páll-Gergely and White (2023) showed that the ‘real’ Bensonella plicidens was a species with normal (not hooked) barriers, while the Himalayan species with hooked teeth was an undescribed species ( Bensonella hooki Páll-Gergely, 2023). Since the ‘hooked’ and 'not hooked’ species are very similar in other shell characters, this trait could not be used as a diagnostic character for recognising Bensonella . Rather, this genus is diagnosed by a brownish shell with the last whorl attached to the penultimate whorl, and the presence of separate angular and parietal lamellae.

Since the type species of Bensonella and Paraboysidia ( Boysidia paviei Bavay & Dautzenberg, 1912) are very similar, the latter has been treated as a junior synonym of the former ( Gittenberger et al. 2021; Páll-Gergely and White 2023).