September-December, 2012 
SCAMIT Newsletter 
Vol. 31 Nos. 3-4 
the same speeies. In order to test this method of delimitation, three samples of benthie marine 
maeroinvertebrates (300 individuals eaeh) will be eolleeted near the long outfall pipeline from 
the Orange County Sanitation Distriet. Three-hundred individuals will be eolleeted from eaeh 
sample, sorted to individual, and sequeneed for the 658 bp bareoding region of the COl gene. 
Obtained sequenees will be delimited using the CBSD method and eompared to morphologieal 
identifieations and eoneordanee between morphologieal and DNA bareoding will be measured. 
1 expeet that identifieations obtained through DNA bareoding will elosely mateh morphologieal 
identifieations and elarify morphologieal identifieations thought to be eryptie. 
With Bryan’s talk eomplete it was time to move on to Kelvin Barwiek’s mollusk presentation. 
[Editor's Note: All Figures referenced in the mollusk minutes below can be found as an 
attachment at the end of the NL] 
Kelvin began his presentation on Lirobittium, a genus whieh historieally has not been treated 
with equal taxonomie effort by the various ageneies. He began with a brief nomenelatural history 
of the group. The first large seale review of west eoast Bittium was done by Bartseh in 1911. He 
relied entirely on shell eharaeters from both extant and fossil material deseribing a number of 
speeies, genera, and subgenera. Houbriek (1977) synonomized 13 genera and subgenera under 
the genus Bittium plaeing it in the Subfamily Cerithiinae. In 1981 Hertz attempted to address 3 
elosely related speeies of Bittium from the Eastern Paeifie, {Bittium asperum, B. rugatum, and 
B. suplanatum). He illustrated types and addressed some of the nomenelatural issues as well as 
proposing shell eharaeters separating the three speeies in question. Next, in a follow up to his 
1977 paper, Houbriek (1993) eondueted a phylogenetie analysis of what had beeome Subfamily 
Bittinae using external soft tissue, radula, reproduetive struetures, and the shell. Based on the 
eladisties analysis he proposed 5 genera (Figure 1). He further warned against relying solely on 
shell morphology for identifieation. Houbriek noted that Lirobittium is the only genus known to 
have an egg mass that resembles “a group of small balloons with their strings attaehed together.” 
Development is direet. Kelvin showed images of loeal speeimens with these egg mases attaehed 
above the aperture (Figure 2). MeLean (1978, 1996 and 2007) reviewed and illustrated the extant 
speeies reeorded from near and offshore waters of California. All southern California speeies 
were plaeed in Lirobittium. He used shell eharaeteristies alone.The take away message from 
previous work is that an emphasis solely on shell morphology leads to taxonomie eonfiision 
and diffieulty as there is a large range of variability within a speeies. However, for many of us 
working in monitoring labs, the idea of grappling with soft tissue eharaeters is problematie. In 
an attempt to look at the anatomy, Kelvin has found that the animal is so tightly enelosed within 
the shell in preservation that it is diffieult to diseem, eonelusively, the eharaeters outlined by 
Houbriek. 
With this as a baekground Kelvin presented images of various taxa from speeimens provided 
by most of the partieipating ageneies, eontraetors and individuals. We worked as a group 
to try to reaeh a eonsensus. The presentation ineluded numerous images of loeal speeimens 
eompared to published illustrations and is available on request (kbarwick@ocsd.com). The 
following SCAMIT (2012) taxa were eonsidered: Lirobittium attenuatum (Carpenter 1864); 
L. calenum (Dali 1919); L. larum (Bartseh 1911); L. paganicum (Dali 1919); L. quadrifilatum 
(Carpenter 1864); L. rugatum (Carpenter 1864); L.fetellum (Bartseh 1911). Friendly arguments 
and bantering ensued but we finally agreed on the following: L. larum, L. rugatum, and L. 
quadrifissatum are eonsidered to be too poorly understood and eonfused in the literature to be 
6 
Publication Date: 6 July 2016 
