Helix glabriuscula Pfeiffer, 1853

Brook, Fred J. & Ablett, Jonathan D., 2019, Type material of land snails (Mollusca: Gastropoda) described from New Zealand by taxonomists in Europe and North America between 1830 and 1934, and the history of research on the New Zealand land snail fauna from 1824 to 1917, Zootaxa 4697 (1), pp. 1-117 : 72-73

Helix glabriuscula Pfeiffer, 1853

Pl. 8, fig. E; Pl. 14, fig. I

Pfeiffer, 1853d. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, pt. 19: 262.

Type material: Syntypes, NHMUK 20141113 /1–4 (4), NHMUK 20040908 (4) (dry shell material) ; ex Museum Cuming (Acc. no. 1829).

Label details: ‘N. Zealand’; ‘n.sp. glabriuscula Pfr. ’—in Pfeiffer’s handwriting.

Type locality: ‘Nova Seelandia’ ( Pfeiffer, 1853d: 262).

Previous illustrations of type material: Reeve (1852 [in 1851–1854]: pl. 133, fig. 822), Pfeiffer (1853 [in 1852–1860]: pl. 156, figs. 14–16), Tryon (1887 [from Reeve 1852]: pl. 21, fig. 14).

Remarks: Helix glabriuscula Reeve, 1852 and H. glabriuscula Pfeiffer, 1853 , are based on the same type material, which H. Cuming had obtained from the Australian-based naturalist Frederick Strange. Pfeiffer evidently intended to publish the original description of this species in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London issue for 1851 (see Reeve 1852 [in 1851–1854]: species 822; Pfeiffer 1853a: 51, 1854 [in 1852–1860]: 470), but publication was delayed until 1853 ( Pfeiffer 1853d: 262), and was pre-empted by Reeve (1852 [in 1851–1854]: species 822) [note that the publication date of ‘ October 1851 ’ listed for plate 133 of Reeve (1851 –1854) is presumed to be an error, as the immediately preceding and following plates were dated ‘ October 1852 ’ (see Petit 2007: table 3)]. Authorship of this species has generally been attributed to Pfeiffer (e.g., Hector 1873: 6; Hutton 1880: 23; Suter 1913b: 729; Powell 1979: 328; Spencer et al. 2009: 217), but Reeve (1852) has priority.

Taxonomy: Helix glabriuscula Pfeiffer, 1853 is a junior primary homonym and an objective junior synonym of Phrixgnathus glabriusculus (Reeve, 1852) N. syn.