Melanopsis lorcana var. etrusca Westerlund, 1886

Neubauer, Thomas A., 2016, A nomenclator of extant and fossil taxa of the Melanopsidae (Gastropoda, Cerithioidea), ZooKeys 602, pp. 1-358 : 115

Melanopsis lorcana var. etrusca Westerlund, 1886

Original source.

Westerlund 1886: 128.

Type locality.

"Italien, Balearen [Westerlund]; aus Toscana als auch aus Jumilla (Spanien) und Merknes (Marocco) [Brot]" [Italy, Balearic Islands (Spain); Tuscany (Italy), Jumilla (prov. Murcia, Spain), Merknes (Morocco)].

Remarks.

The name was first mentioned by Brot (1862: 63) as " etrusca Villa (v. min)" from the locality “Toscane”, without description or bibliographical reference. Brot listed it under the name " Melanopsis Dufourii Fér.”, for which a bibliographical reference (to "Rossm. Icon. 835-839") and locality “Espagne” was given. Since etrusca was neither described by Brot nor by Rossmässler, the name etrusca is not available from this case (Art. 12.1).

Brot (1879: 434) listed the name (" Melanopsis etrusca Villa MSS.") as synonym of Melanopsis Dufourii var. β, which he introduced there with a short Latin description. On p. 435 Brot even associated etrusca with an illustration of a specimen from Toscana (pl. 47, fig. 3). However, the name was explicitly referred to as synonym of the (unnamed) variety β, which is not a valid name, and thus the requirements of Art. 11.6 (and therefore 12.1) are not met (see Note 2).

Westerlund (1886: 128) used the name as "[ Melanopsis lorcana ] var. etrusca Villa ap. Brot (Cat. syst. Melan. 1862)" and provided a description and thus made it available as species-group taxon. Since he referred to Brot’s catalogue, the type locality comprises both his and Brot’s records. The authority of Melanopsis etrusca remains with Westerlund. Art. 11.6.1 does not apply here as Brot (1879) had listed the name as synonym of "Var. β”, which is not a valid name (see Note 2).