Lyonsifusus ansatus (Gmelin, 1791)

Lyons, William G. & Snyder, Martin Avery, 2019, Fasciolariidae (Gastropoda: Neogastropoda) of French Guiana and nearby regions, with descriptions of two new species and comments on marine zoogeography of northeastern South America, Zootaxa 4585 (2), pp. 239-268 : 244

The Lyonsifusus ansatus species complex

In species complexes within several Fusinine genera, the morphologies of typical specimens diverge into several or many diverse forms. Given the present depauperate understanding of the biology of individual fusinine taxa, taxonomists have tended to regard these complexes simply as variable species. Examples include Fusinus colus ( Linnaeus, 1758) of the western Pacific, F. perplexus ( A. Adams, 1864) of Japanese seas, Africofusus ocellifer ( Lamarck, 1816) of South Africa and Marmorofusus nicobaricus ( Röding, 1798) of the Indo-west Pacific (see Snyder & Lyons 2014). Two examples in the western Atlantic include the group of Goniofusus strigatus ( Philippi, 1850) — G. brasiliensis ( Grabau, 1904) of central and southern Brazil and the Lyonsifusus ansatus complex of northern South America and the Lesser Antilles. The latter group contains several named taxa, of which we classify all except one as the variable L. ansatus ( Gmelin, 1791) (see below). The exception is Lyonsifusus carvalhoriosi ( Macsotay & Campos Villarroel, 2001) , which clearly is related to the L. ansatus group but whose shell morphology is sufficiently distinctive to merit recognition as a separate species.