Eratoena Iredale, 1935

Fehse, Dirk, 2010, Contributions to the knowledge of the Eratoidae IV. A new species from Tuamotu, French Polynesia, add _ journal _ name _ here 33 (1), pp. 13-18 : 14

Eratoena Iredale, 1935

Type species: Ooulum corrugatum Hinds, 1844 , by monotypy.

Diagnosis. Shell small, pyriform, more or less minutely wrinkled throughout; spire elevated; dorsal sulcus often well defined; columellar and labral dentition numerous and well-defined. Dorsal colouration white or light red but more often light green with anterior tip usually red.

Remarks. Eight fossil and nine living species of the Indian Ocean, Indo-Pacific and Pacific are assigned to the genus.

Liltved (2000) accepted only the genus Erato Risso, 1826 for all the recent Eratoid species that are similar to the Cypraeidae and Triviidae . Meyer (2003, 2004), however, has confirmed a much greater diversity in genera within the Cypraeidae . Similar results were found in the family Ovulidae (Schiaparelli et al. 2005) and in Triviidae , the sister family of the Eratoidae (Simone 2004; Fehse & Grego 2009a,b). There are no molecular systematic data for the Eratoidae available at the moment but the zoogeography alone implies a greater diversity of genera by geographical isolation (Schilder 1943, 1959, 1961, 1969). It is already confirmed by their shell morphology. Similarly, the genus Erato – type species Voluta cypraeola Brocchi, 1814 – is only used for European fossil and recent species (Schilder & Schilder 1971). Species of Erato have generally a larger shell. Some Erato species might have a pustulated but never wrinkled shell and the pustules are restricted usually to the posterior part of the shell. A dorsal sulcus is obscured or absent in almost all species (Fehse & Landau 2002a,b, 2003; Fehse & Grego in press). Furthermore, the only living species of the genus Erato – E. ooluta (Montagu, 1803) – is uniformly coloured and lacks, therefore, a different coloured anterior tip.