Bythinella marici, Glöer & Pešić, 2014

Glöer, Peter & Pešić, Vladimir, 2014, Two new species of the genusBythinella Moquin-Tandon, 1856 (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Hydrobiidae) from the Western Balkan Peninsula), Ecologica Montenegrina 1 (4), pp. 249-255 : 251-252

Bythinella marici n. sp.

( Figs. 7­ 10)

Type series. Holotype ( ZMH 79884 ): Shell height 3.5 mm, shell width 2.1 mm; Bosnia and Hercegovina, Grahovsko Polje, Bosansko Grahovo town , River Korana near village Luka, leg. Marić. Paratypes ( ZMH 79885 ) : 6 ex.; 6 ex. coll. Glöer, same data and locality as holotype .

Locus typicus. Bosnia and Hercegovina , Grahovsko Polje , Bosansko Grahovo town , River Korana near village Luka, 44° 9'41.07"N, 16°23'14.82"E .

Etymology. Named after Prof dr Drago Marić (Department of Biology, Podgorica), collector of the new species, in appreciation of his studies on Montenegrian biodiversity.

Description

Shell. The large shell is whitish and cylindrical. The 4.5 whorls are convex with a very deep suture. The surface is silky and finely striated. The apex is obtuse, the umbilicus is slit­like. The aperture is oval. Shell height 3.3­ 3.5 mm, width 2.0­ 2.1 mm mm, height aperture/shell ratio 0.43.

Soft body. The mantle is black with a greyish boarder, the head is whitish.The penis is shorter than the penial appendix. The flagellum is long, thin at the proximal end and broad at the distal end.

Differentiating features. It is one of the largest species of this genus in the Balkan Peninsula. Only two Bythinella species from the Gacko polje, a karstic field (= polje) in Croatia, are larger: B. magna Radoman 1976 , with a shell height of 4.55­ 5.21 ( Radoman 1983: 209) and B. kapelana Radoman 1976 with a shell height of 4.33­ 4.70. In addition to the dimensions, these species differ in the shape of aperture: in B. magna the aperture is a relatively low (height aperture/shell ratio 0.38, data taken from Radoman 1983) while in B. kapelana aperture is nearly elliptical.

Distribution. Bosnia and Hercegovina; known only from the type locality ( Fig. 14).