New records of the endemic Sicilian land snail species Marmorana (Murella) muralis (O. F. Müller, 1774) from the north of Tunisia (Pulmonata, Gastropoda)

By

EZZINE, Issaad Kawther
Dimassi, Najet
Pfarrer, Beat
Said, Khaled
Neubert, Eike

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2018

Original Publication

ZooKeys

Volume

775

Pages

131-147

Subjects

16S , Anatomy , COI , Marmorana , Morphologie , Murella nicollei

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.775.25740

 

Abstract

Marmorana (Murella) muralis is known as an endemic species of Sicily Island, which is introduced in many European countries. Here, M. (M.) muralis is recorded from the north of Tunisia. In order to confirm the identification of samples collected from several localities, shell morphology, details of genital organs and two mitochondrial markers (COI and 16S) were investigated. The results of the molecular study, as well as the morphological and anatomical studies confirm the identification of all Tunisian samples as M. (M.) muralis. The analysis of mitochondrial markers shows a low divergence between Sicilian and Tunisian samples suggesting a recent introduction of M. (M.) muralis to the North of Tunisia. The comparison of morphological characters of M. (M.) muralis with shell characters of Murellanicollei described by Pallary (1926) confirms that the latter should be considered as synonym of M. (M.) muralis.