Helix beta 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 : 29

Helix beta Pfeiffer, 1853

Pl. 2, fig. C

Pfeiffer, 1853. Monographia heliceorum viventium, 3: 112.

Type material: Syntypes (3), NHMUK 1962723 (dry shell material); ex. Mus. Cuming (Acc. no. 1829) .

Label details: ‘ H. beta Pfr., N. Zeland’ in Pfeiffer’s handwriting.

Type locality: ‘Nova Seelandia’ ( Pfeiffer 1853a: 112).

Previous illustrations of type material: Reeve (1852 [in 1851–1854]: pl. 132, fig. 814—as Helix barbatula ); Pfeiffer (1853 [in 1852–1860]: pl. 155, figs. 53–56); Climo (1980: figs. 1 A, B—as H. barbatula ).

Remarks: Helix barbatula Reeve, 1852 and H. beta 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 814; Pfeiffer 1853a: 113; Pfeiffer 1854 [in 1852–1860]: 462), but publication was delayed until 1854 ( Pfeiffer 1854a: 58), and was pre-empted by Reeve (1852 [in 1851–1854]).

Current Taxonomy: Treated as an objective junior synonym of Helix barbatula Reeve, 1852 by Suter (1913b: 698) and Climo (1980: 295).