Helix portia Gray, 1850

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 : 56

Helix portia Gray, 1850

Pl. 6, fig. D

Gray, 1850. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London, 17 (1849):165.

Type material: Syntypes (9), NHMUK 1849.12.3.59–62, NHMUK 1850.12.28.454–458 (combined lot, dry shell material) .

Label details: ‘N.Z., Major Greenwood’.

Type locality: ‘Auckland’ (Gray 1850: 166).

Previous illustrations of type material: A shell illustrated by Pfeiffer (1853 [in 1852–1860]: pl. 154, figs. 15–18) may be a syntype, whereas one illustrated by Reeve (1852 [in 1851–1854]: pl. 131, fig. 806) was from the Cuming collection, and there is no evidence to indicate that it was from the type series.

Remarks: The original description, which was reproduced by Gray (1851: 65), was based on specimens collected at Auckland in the mid to late 1840s by Dr. Andrew Sinclair and Major Joseph Greenwood, and sent to the British Museum. Previously considered to be conspecific with Helix collyrula Reeve, 1852 and H. kappa Pfeiffer, 1853 (e.g., Hutton 1884b: 203; Tryon 1886: 213; Hedley & Suter 1893: 635; Suter 1913b: 632; Powell 1979: 318). However, as noted above, collyrula and kappa , which are based on the same type material, are a different species.

Current Taxonomy: Treated as a junior synonym of Helix (Theba) ziczac Gould, 1846 by Hedley & Suter (1893: 635), Suter (1894d: 256, 1913b: 632) and Powell (1979: 318).