Orcula

Pall-Gergely, Barna, Deli, Tamas, Irikov, Atanas & Harl, Josef, 2013, Subgeneric division of the genus Orcula Held 1837 with remarks on Romanian orculid data (Gastropoda, Pulmonata, Orculidae), ZooKeys 301, pp. 25-49 : 27-30

Subgenus Orcula

Diagnosis.

Shell smoothish with irregular growth lines; apex somewhat conical, not blunt; aperture with 2-3 columellar lamellae; penial caecum simple and usually longer than half the length of the penis; its base often not conspicuously thickened.

Content.

austriaca, conica, dolium, fuchsi, gularis, pseudodolium Wagner 1912, restituta, spoliata, tolminensis.

Remarks.

The soft anatomy of various Orcula taxa has been described in the following papers: austriaca ( Gittenberger 1978, Schileyko 2012), austriaca faueri Klemm 1967 ( Gittenberger 1978, Schileyko 2012), austriaca pseudofuchsi Klemm 1967 ( Gittenberger 1978, Schileyko 2012), conica ( Soós 1925, Gittenberger 1978, Schileyko 2012), dolium ( Soós 1917, 1925, Steenberg 1925, Gittenberger 1978, Varga 1986, Grossu 1987, Reischütz 1995, Schileyko 1984, 1998, 2012), dolium brancsikii Clessin 1887 ( Reischütz 1995), dolium edita Ehrmann, 1933 ( Schileyko 2012), dolium gracilior Zimmermann 1932 ( Gittenberger 1978, Schileyko 2012) dolium infima Ehrmann, 1933 ( Schileyko 2012), dolium pseudogularis A. J. Wagner, 1912 ( Gittenberger 1978), fuchsi ( Gittenberger 1978, Schileyko 2012), gularis ( Soós 1925; republished by Grossu 1987, Gittenberger 1978, Schileyko 2012), pseudodolium ( Gittenberger 1978), restituta ( Gittenberger 1978), spoliata ( Gittenberger 1978, Schileyko 2012), tolminensis ( Gittenberger 1978).

The penial caecum of Orcula (Orcula) restituta is very short compared to other Orcula (Orcula) species, but the shell is similar to that of Orcula (Orcula) gularis . Prior to Klemm (1967), restituta was considered a subspecies of gularis.

A third columellar lamella is rarely present, but can occur in a small percentage of individuals within a population. Brancsik (1888: 84) noted a third columellar fold in only one individual of thousands in each Orcula dolium titan ( Brancsik 1888) and Orcula dolium dolium .

Distribution.

Most species have limited distributions in the Alps (mainly Austria). Orcula dolium is widely distributed in Central Europe, in the Alps (eastern France, Switzerland, Southern Germany, Northern Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Northern Croatia, and Slovenia) and the Western Carpathians (Northern Hungary, Slovakia, Eastern Czech Republic). The Croatian records of Orcula dolium and Orcula gularis ( Stossich 1880, 1899, Zimmermann, 1932) have not been verified by recent investigations.

Our knowledge of the distribution of Orcula dolium is distorted due to misidentified material. Probably all reports of this species (living and fossil) from Spain (e.g. Llamas et al. 1995) refer to Orculella aragonica (see Arrébola et al. 2012). Italian (Toscana) records ( Zanchetta et al. 2004, 2006) refer to a yet unknown Orculella species (see photo in Zanchetta et al. 2006). Damjanov and Likharev (1975) reported Orcula dolium from the Balkan Peninsula, South, Central and West Europe, the Crimea, Western Ukraine, Central Asia, Tunisia, Ethiopia and northen Iran. This distribution is much broader than that of Orcula dolium and probably refers to the distribution of the family Orculidae . Likharev and Rammelmejer (1952) and Sysoev and Schileyko (2009) speculated that Orcula dolium occurs in Ukraine. This supposition has been included in distribution maps ( Welter-Schultes, 2012), but to date the taxon’s occurrence in Ukraine has not been verified data ( Balashov and Gural-Sverlova 2012). Soós (1943) mentioned that during careful collections around Munkács (Mukachevo, southwest Ukraine), Traxler was not able to find the species.

Orcula dolium was more widely distributed during the Pleistocene. The northernmost localities were published by Ložek (2006) (Czech Republic, ca, 30 km north of Prague) and Moine et al. (2005) (Germany, northern Baden-Württemberg). The southernmost locality was reported by Mitrović (2007) from the Serbian Kisiljevo.

Sacco (1897) described Orcula dolium var. pliopedemontana from the middle Pliocene sediments at Ceresole d’Alba (Italy: ‘’Villafranchiano’’). The description is unfortunately insufficient and the taxonomic position of this form is uncertain ( Ferrero-Mortara et al. 1984, Pilsbry 1922). More recently, Ciangherotti et al. (2007) made no mention of the species from the same sediment layers.