Trochus tahitiensis Lichtenstein, 1794

Geiger, Daniel L., 2022, Anton August Heinrich Lichtenstein’s (1794) Catalogus Rerum Naturalium Rarissimarum, pars secunda. Facsimile edition and annotated translation, Zootaxa 5127 (1), pp. 1-126 : 117

Trochus tahitiensis Lichtenstein, 1794

Geiger (2003) discussed this species but could not identify it. Boutet et al. (2020) provided an excellent overview on the malacofauna of French Polynesia. Trochus histrio Reeve, 1861 , matches the description of Lichtenstein’s Trochus thatiensis precisely. The shell is conical, covered in tubercles, colored red and green, has four teeth on the parietal wall, and has a nacreous interior of the aperture. Lichtenstein’s name has been overlooked and Reeve’s name is well known. The conditions of ICZN Art. 23.9.1.2 are met by 25 citations by at least 10 authors in the preceding 50 years with the following references, which is certainly not exhaustive ( Cernhorsky 1978; Abbott & Dance 1983; Wells & Bryce 1985; Abbott 1991; Wilson 1993; Higo et al. 1999; Zongyan 2004; Chiu & Liang 2005; Okutani 2000; 2017; Dobson 2001; Taylor & Glover 2004; Dharma 2005; Idris et al. 2005; Ristson-Williams et al. 2006; Ramakrishna & Sivaperuman 2010; Brown 2011; Zongguo & Mao 2012; Wu & Cai 2012; Lee & Park 2013; Willan et al. 2015; Grilo et al. 2018, 2019; Pham et al. 2019; Boutet et al. 2020). Trochus tahitiensis Lichtenstein, 1794 is a nomen oblitum, with Trochus histrio Reeve, 1861 as nomen protectum.

The date of publication of Trochus histrio is given as 1842 in WoRMS. The actual description is found in Reeve’s Concholgica Iconica vol. 13, species 90, with printed date of December 1861 on that very page. Trochus histrio was not indicated in Sherborn’s (1922) Index Animalium of names introduced between 1801 and 1850, for which reason an overlooked publication from prior 1850 is very unlikely. Reeve (1861) did not refer to any previous description of this species.

Helix of Lichtenstein (1794). In the eighteenth century, the generic concept of Helix contained all types of land snails, of which there are approximately 30,000 currently described species.