Comparative Morphology And Classification Of Subulinoidea In China

Two subulinoid families,Subulinidae and Glessulidae are distributed in China.The first family is subgrouped into four subfamilies,namely Subulininae,Opeatinae,Rumininae,Obeliscinae and Coeliaxinae.The superfamily is distributed in tropical and subtropical regions where Africa,SE Asia and Mid-and South America contribute most in subulinid species diversity.In China,the superfamily was studied more or less intensively in a-taxonomy from 1834 to 1906,after which the study on this group has been overlooked for about a century.The subulinoid snail has tower-shaped shell and the soft part which can be completely withdrawn into the shell,which keeps long-term growth after its maturity and due shows intraspecific difference in shell parameters.In my study,I tried to study the shell morphology by geometric morphometrics.The conch data extracted from 555 handy subulinid shells was analyzed using TPS series softwares and MorphoJ,and the obtained results including PCA scattering plots were employed to the classification.This study also re-described 17 known species and 33 new"species",whose diagnoses,short taxonomic remarks and photographs were presented.The variation of the studied subulinoid shells,as suggested by the geometric morphological analyses which depend on landmarking methods,usually occurs at some shell parts with limited range,which include apex,1-3 whorls near aperture and aperture.The result,based on above mentioned conchological analyses,suggests that a large amount of subulinoid diversity might be expected in China,although the anatomical information is wanted at this moment.The possible new species,in species richness order,are Opeas Albers,1850,Tortxis Pilsbry,1906,Glessula Martens,1860,and Curvella Chaper,1885.Twenty six Opeas spp.,five Tortaxis spp.and three Glessula spp.conchologically differing from the conspecificknown members,are distinguished each other by this study.The taxonomic level of these 34 "species" will be fixed after their anatomical information is explored and made explicit.