Athoracophorus verrucosus Simroth, 1889

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 : 25

Athoracophorus verrucosus Simroth, 1889

Simroth, 1889. Nova acta Academiae Caesareae Leopoldino-Carolinae Germanicae Naturae Curiosorum, 54: 77 ( verrucosus and var. nigricans ), 79 ( var. fuscatus ).

Type material: Lectotype (designated by Barker 2018), ZMB MOLL30998 ( var. nigricans ), and paralectotypes (3), ZMB MOLL30999 ( var. fuscatus ) (in alcohol) ( Kilias 1974: 350).

Label details: ‘ New Zealand, Auckland Isl., leg.: Krone’.

Type locality: ‘Auklandinsel’ ( Simroth 1889: 70).

Remarks: Erection of Athoracophorus verrucosus was based on descriptions of two varieties, namely var. fuscatus and var. nigricans , from specimens collected in 1874 by the naturalist and photographer Herman Krone, during a German expedition to the Auckland Islands to observe a transit of Venus. Simroth (1889: 79) noted that E. von Martens provided the species and variety names , but Simroth himself was responsible for the nomenclatural act of publishing both the names and descriptions (see Barker 2018: 229). Correspondence from Martens to Suter, quoted by Hedley (1893d: 158), indicates that the name “ fuscata is a writing—or printer’s—error”, and that Martens had intended to name this variety fasciatus (see also Suter, 1913b: 808; Barker 2018: 223). There are no published illustrations of type material. The varieties fuscatus and nigricans were differentiated on the basis of coloration. Suter (1913b: 808) and Burton (1963: 59) noted that external morphological characters and anatomy were identical in the two varieties, and the latter author implicitly treated them as synonyms of verrucosus . Under ICZN Art.72.4.1 the type material of var. fuscatus and var. nigricans is excluded from the type series of verrucosus . However, Barker (2018) noted that there is a deficiency in the Code for species lacking type material, and he selected a syntype of var. nigricans as the provisional lectotype of verrucosus , pending resolution of this issue in a future edition of the Code. Athoracophorus verrucosus is the type species of the monotypic genus Palliopodex Burton, 1963 , by original designation.

Taxonomy: Listed as Palliopodex verrucosus ( Simroth, 1889) by Burton (1963: 59; 1980: 184), Powell (1979: 301) and Spencer et al. (2009: 215).

Distribution: Auckland Islands ( Simroth 1889; Suter 1913b; Burton 1963; Powell 1979).