Mnestia girardi (Audouin, 1826)

Albano, Paolo G., Steger, Jan, Bakker, Piet A. J., Bogi, Cesare, Bosnjak, Marija, Guy-Haim, Tamar, Huseyinoglu, Mehmet Fatih, LaFollette, Patrick I., Lubinevsky, Hadas, Mulas, Martina, Stockinger, Martina, Azzarone, Michele & Sabelli, Bruno, 2021, Numerous new records of tropical non-indigenous species in the Eastern Mediterranean highlight the challenges of their recognition and identification, ZooKeys 1010, pp. 1-95 : 1

Mnestia girardi (Audouin, 1826)

New records.

Israel • 5 spcms; west of Rosh HaNikra Islands; 33.0704°N, 35.0926°E; depth 12 m; 29 Oct. 2018; HELM project (samples S52_1F, S52_2F, S52_3F) • 1 spcm, 2 shs; west of Rosh HaNikra Islands; 33.0725°N, 35.0923°E; depth 20 m; 1 May 2018; rocky substrate; suction sampler; HELM project (samples S13_2M, S13_3F) • 12 spcms; same collecting data as for preceding; depth 19 m; 29 Oct. 2018; HELM project (samples S53_1F, S53_2F, S53_2M, S53_3F).

Remarks.

This species was first recorded in the Mediterranean Sea in 1974 with the finding of few empty shells in the Bardawil Lagoons in Egypt ( Mienis 1976). The species has since been recorded also in Greece ( Crocetta et al. 2017), Turkey ( Çinar et al. 2011), Cyprus ( Katsanevakis et al. 2009), and Lebanon ( Crocetta et al. 2020). A single record is available from Israel based on shells collected in 2004 off Palmachim ( Bogi and Galil 2006). We here report living individuals from Israel for the first time. This is also the first finding of living individuals in the Mediterranean Sea.