Abida secale, Draparnaud, 1801

Kokshoorn, Bas & Gittenberger, Edmund, 2010, Chondrinidae taxonomy revisited: New synonymies, new taxa, and a checklist of species and subspecies (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Pulmonata) 2539, Zootaxa 2539 (1), pp. 1-62 : 19

Abida secale from high altitudes (above 2,000 m alt.)

Populations classified with the following six subspecies, i.e. A. s. cadica, A. s. cadiensis, A. s. vilellai subspec. nov., A. s. peteri subspec. nov., A. s. ionicae subspec. nov. and A. s. merijni subspec. nov., are restricted to relatively high elevations in Spain and Andorra, i.e. above 2,000 m. In the Alps, A. secale populations occur at equally high localities but there the snails are not or hardly differentiated conchologically. The clinal, altitudinal variation that may be observed in a small part of the total range of Abida secale does not allow for an objective, sharp delimitation of the subspecies that are distinguished here. Consequently, the interpretation of ‘intermediate’ forms may be somewhat subjective. A morphometric study, assessing altitudinal variation in A. secale , revealed convergent similarities next to obvious differences between these forms ( Kokshoorn 2008: 99–114). Those results enable the following description of four new subspecies of A. secale . These forms from high altitudes cannot simply be considered illustrative for ecophenotypical variation, since they are restricted geographically to a minor part of the large range of A. secale . They are independent evolutionary lineages with their own diagnostic character states, and are connected across an altitudinal gradient to different subspecies occurring at lower altitudes.