Helix regularis Pfeiffer, 1855

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 : 94-95

Helix regularis Pfeiffer, 1855

Pl. 11, fig. D

Pfeiffer, 1855a. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, pt. 22: 50.

Type material: Lectotype, NHMUK 20141112 (dry shell material); ex Museum Cuming (Acc. no. 1829) . Lectotype fixed by inference of holotype ( ICZN Article 74.6) by Climo (1979: 407, fig. 1K–L) .

Label details: ‘N. Zealand’

Type locality: Not known. Incorrectly stated as ‘New Zealand’ by Pfeiffer (1855a: 50).

Previous illustrations of type material: Reeve (1854 [in 1851–1854]: pl. 182, fig. 1259), Tryon (1887 [from Reeve 1854]: pl. 21, fig. 12), Climo (1979: fig. 1K–L).

Remarks: Helix regularis Reeve, 1854 and H. regularis Pfeiffer, 1855 were both described from one or more specimens in H. Cuming’s collection, and were based on the same type material. The specimen in NHMUK 20141112 ex Museum Cuming does not have an original Pfeiffer taxon label, but is treated here as the lectotype of H. regularis Pfeiffer, 1853 , after Climo (1979: 407), because the locality listed on the label matches that in Pfeiffer’s original description. Pfeiffer evidently intended to publish the original description of this species in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London issue for 1854 (see Reeve 1854 [in 1851–1854]: species 1259), but publication was delayed until 1855 ( Pfeiffer 1855a: 50) [publication date of January 1855, according to Sclater & Waterhouse (1893)], and was pre-empted by Reeve (1854 [in 1851–1854]: species 1259). Authorship previously attributed to Pfeiffer (1855) (e.g., Hector 1873: 7; Hutton 1880: 17; Suter 1913b: 756; Climo 1979: 407; Powell 1979: 329), but Reeve (1854) has priority.

Taxonomy: Helix regularis Pfeiffer, 1855 is a junior primary homonym and an objective junior synonym of Coneuplecta regularis (Reeve, 1854) N. syn.