NEW SUBFAMILY AND GENUS ACHATINIDAE 



Callistoplepa 



Callistoplepa 



Ancey, 1888:69 (footnote 2 for 'Achatina shuttleworthiana' 

 [sic = A. shuttleworthi Pfeiffer, 1856]); Pilsbry, 1905:viii, 

 ix (fig. 2), xv (radula); Germain, 1909:90; Pilsbry, 

 1919:54, 60, 80, fig. 25 (map); Bequaert & Clench, 

 1934c:114; Ortiz & Ortiz, 1959:44; Zilch, 1959:372; Mead, 

 1986:144. 



Ganomidos 



d'Ailly, 1896:66. Type species by present designation, 

 Achatina barriana Sowerby, 1890. 



Callistopepla 



Ancey, 1898:92 (type species: Achatina shuttleworthi Pfe- 

 iffer, 1856); Thiele, 1929:560; Germain, 1936:151 (foot- 

 note 3); Verdcourt, 1966:111; Meredith, 1983:30; Oliver, 

 1983:9; Parkinson, etal 1987:68; Vaught, 1988:90. 



Ganomidus 



Boettger, 1905:170. 



Ganomides 



Verdcourt, 1966:111. 



Callistoplepa s.s. 

 Mead, 1992. 



After an extended trip to West Africa, a Captain Vignon 

 prepared a catalogue of 104 land and freshwater molluscs that 

 he had collected. The shells and the catalogue were subse- 

 quently acquired by a collector in Marseille and made avail- 

 able to his colleague C.F. Ancey, who was given the 

 opportunity to publish this catalogue. Ancey (1888) agreed to 

 present it 'such as it is, but with necessary, even indispens- 

 able, annotations because of defective identifications, some 

 of which are not found to be at the level of the science' 

 (trans.). In one of many footnote annotations, he placed 

 "Achatina shuttleworthiana' [sic] under a new generic name 

 'Callistoplepa'. If Ancey was not responsible for the misspell- 

 ing of the specific name 'shuttleworthi\ then at least he did 

 not correct it. The greater misfortune was that he misspelled 

 the proposed generic name, which as revealed later (Ancey, 

 1898) was intended to be 'Callistopepla' (Gr. most beautiful 

 robe). 



In view of Ancey's casual manner of publishing the descrip- 

 tion of this genus, the spelling of the generic name 'Callis- 

 toplepa" must be considered to be the 'correct original 

 spelling' (ICZN Art. 32 (b) and is 'to be preserved unaltered'. 

 According to Art. 32 (c), Ancey's name does not qualify as an 

 'incorrect original spelling' because, 'without recourse to . . . 

 external source of information,' there is no 'clear evidence of 

 an inadvertent error' even though orthographically it would 

 have been desirable to have spelled it 'Callistopepla' . His 

 unorthodoxy and failure to make a timely correction in 

 spelling suggested that he was content for ten years to leave it 

 in its original form. In the meantime d'Ailly (1896) unwit- 

 tingly proposed the generic synonym Ganomidos including 

 Achatina shuttleworthi along with A. barriana. Further, 

 Ancey's original spelling contravenes no provisions of the 

 Code articles. It is only in his belated publication (1898) that 

 he used the spelling 'Callistopepla' , without even implied 

 justification for the change in spelling. Under the circum- 

 stances, this constituted an 'unjustified emendation' of the 

 original spelling and therefore it is a junior objective syn- 

 onym (Art. 33 (b)(iii). Or, perhaps it was just another one of 

 his regrettable misspellings. This rationale supports Pilsbry's 

 conclusions (1905:126), but not those of Germain (1936:151 



footnote 3 ). Unfortunately, the confusion about the valid 

 spelling of the generic name has persisted in collections and 

 even in the more recent literature, e.g. Parkinson et ai, 

 1987:68, Vaught, 1988:90. It is hoped that the present expli- 

 cation finally will obviate any further confusion. 



Ancey (1888) gave as the outstanding characteristics of this 

 new genus its totally different appearance, thin shell, fine 

 striation, and a colour pattern recalling Orthalicus gallinasul- 

 tana. d'Ailly (1896) was the first to describe adequately this 

 taxon, emphasizing the delicate, translucent, shiny, white- 

 flecked shell, the vertical filiform sculpture, the mammillate 

 apex, the inflated body whorl, the elongate, serrate-cristate 

 foot, the hard-shelled eggs, and the unusual radulae of both 

 Ganomidos shuttleworthi and the then, newly embraced G. 

 barriana. Pilsbry (1905) accepted broadly d'Ailly's character- 

 ization of the genus and emphasized the importance of the 

 very thin shell, the closely 'ribplicate' sculpture and the broad 

 central tooth of the radula. In addition, he included in 

 Ancey's genus Callistoplepa: Ganomidos pellucidus Putzeys, 

 1898, G. fraterculus Dupius & Putzeys, 1900, Achatina mar- 

 teli and its subspecies A. m. pallescens Dautzenberg, 1901. 

 Germain (1909) and Pilsbry (1919) retained this grouping. 

 Bequaert & Clench (1934c) added to this genus on the basis 

 of shell characters: Achatina nyikaensis Pilsbry, 1909 and A. 

 graueri Thiele, 1911. In the present work it is demonstrated 

 on the basis of the soft anatomy that the taxa added to 

 Callistoplepa since d'Ailly (1896) are not congeneric, but are 

 in subfamily Achatininae. 



Bequaert & Clench (1934c: 114) were misleading when they 

 reported that C. barriana and C. shuttleworthi 'are from 

 Upper Guinea'. Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer (1952) 

 defines Guinea as equatorial West Africa from Senegal to 

 Angola, being divided into Upper and Lower Guinea by the 

 Niger Delta, van Bruggen (1989) supports the interpretation 

 that the division is at the Dahomey Gap. In either interpreta- 

 tion, these species are limited to Lower Guinea. d'Ailly 

 (1896:70) states that both species live in small numbers in 

 shady places at the base of tree trunks and under detached 

 pieces of bark. 



Key to Species 



Second whorl with thin crescentic threads and granules; last 

 whorl evenly convex, expanding greatly, four times the length 

 of the penultimate whorl when viewed dorsally; aperture 

 length > shell width except in smallest specimens; peripheral 

 arrow-shaped pattern usually pale and diffuse, occasionally 

 absent or nearly so; the suture transects a smaller and often 

 darker pattern; white flecks sparse or abundant, irregularly 

 distributed; nepionic whorls 3; larger species (6 whorls = 

 38-52 mm long). Genital aperture complex, large, superfi- 

 cial; penial retractor inserts on the right columellar retractor 

 posterior to all other branches; penis tubular; vagina longer 



than wide. Cameroon, Nigeria barriana 



Second whorl grossly deeply closely and evenly costate; last 

 whorl subcarinate, expanding proportionately, three times 

 the length of the penultimate whorl when viewed dorsally; 

 aperture length < shell width; conspicuous light castaneous 

 arrow-shaped pattern at periphery, with concentrations of 

 white flecks tending to alternate with the pattern; a smaller 

 similar pattern appears subsuturally, but the white flecks 

 there are more scattered; nepionic whorls 2V2; smaller species 

 (6 whorls = 26-34 mm long). Genital aperture simple, small, 

 lacunate; penial retractor inserts on the right columellar 



