Helix australasiae Lichtenstein, 1794

Geiger, Daniel L., 2022, Anton August Heinrich Lichtenstein’s (1794) Catalogus Rerum Naturalium Rarissimarum, pars secunda. Facsimile edition and annotated translation, Zootaxa 5127 (1), pp. 1-126 : 117-118

Helix australasiae Lichtenstein, 1794

Geiger (2003) treated the species from Tahiti as an unidentified nomen dubium. Gerlach (2017) provided a regional guide to the land and freshwater snails of French Polynesia. None of the species match the description given by Lichtenstein (1794). The size of 1.5 inches (~ 35–40 mm) limits the candidates to the genus Partula Férussac, 1821 . The anomphalous high-spired shell and rounded aperture agree with this identification. The “strongly grooved” aperture could refer to a parietal or apertural tooth. Coloration is variable in partulids, which does not help in narrowing down the possible species. All the above presumes that the indicated provenance is correct.

It is intriguing that the only Partula species described prior to 1800 is P. otaheitana (Bruguière, 1792) , a sinistral species. The chirality was not given for Helix australasiae , which suggests it was a dextral shell. Lichtenstein (1794) highlighted the unusual sinistral condition of two other land snails, lots 1100 and 1124. Accordingly, if the generic identification is correct, then Lichtenstein’s name would be a senior synonym, which would best be found to be a nomen oblitum.