Helix cornea-fulva Pfeiffer, 1861

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 : 82-83

Helix cornea-fulva Pfeiffer, 1861

Pl. 14, fig. J

Pfeiffer, 1861. Malakozoologische Blätter, 8: 148.

Type material: Possibly originally in the Kaiserlichen-Königslichen Naturhistorisches Hofmuseum, Vienna, but not found during a search of the collections in the Naturhistorisches Museum Wien in 2014 (Anita Eschner pers. comm.). As noted in the Introduction (above), the type material may have gone to the Pommersches Museum, Stettin [= Szczecin], after Pfeiffer’s death in 1877, in which case it has probably been lost or destroyed .

Type locality: ‘Bay of Islands’ ( Pfeiffer 1861: 148, 1867: 326).

Previous illustrations of type material: Pfeiffer (1867 [in 1867–1869]: pl. 78, figs. 11–13 (as H. corneofulva ) [reproduced here in pl. 14, fig. J]), Tryon (1886 [from Pfeiffer 1867]: pl. 50, figs.36–38), Pilsbry (1893 [in 1892–1893, from Pfeiffer 1867]: pl. 22, figs. 67–69).

Remarks: Helix cornea-fulva [hereafter listed as H. corneafulva in concordance with ICZN Article 11.9.5] was based on one or more specimens obtained by Ferdinand von Hochstetter during his visit to New Zealand in 1858–1859. Recognised by Hutton (1884b: 212) as being non-native, and interpreted as conspecific with Helix cellaria Müller, 1774 [= Oxychilus cellarius (Müller, 1774) ]. Later records of Helix corneafulva by Suter (1892e: 287; 1894d: 240) and Hedley & Suter (1893: 644) from the ‘Nerger Range’ in the South Island were based on misidentifications of other taxa, as noted by Suter (1913b: 672) and Climo (1984: 208). If corneafulva is in fact a synonym of cellarius it would be one of the earliest records of this adventive species from New Zealand (Barker 1999: 114). The only older record known is of material collected ‘from inside of a house in Auckland’ in 1856 or earlier by Andrew Sinclair (NHMUK 1856.12.27.57). Oxychilus cellarius is native to western and central Europe and the western Mediterranean, and has been introduced to Scandinavia, North and South America, South Africa, St. Helena, Ascension, Australia and New Zealand (Barker 1999; Herbert 2010).

Current Taxonomy: Treated as a junior synonym of Oxychilus cellarius (Müller, 1774) by Hutton (1884b: 212), Tryon (1886: 185), Suter (1904a: 62, 1913b: 1071), Climo (1984: 207) and Barker (1999: 111), albeit without examination of type material.