Chrysallida Carpenter, 1856

Høisaeter, Tore, 2014, The Pyramidellidae (Gastropoda, Heterobranchia) of Norway and adjacent waters. A taxonomic review, Fauna norvegica 34, pp. 7-78 : 14

Genus - Chrysallida Carpenter, 1856 s.l.

Type species by original designation, Chemnitzia communis C.B. Adams, 1852 . Pacifc coast of Panama .

The introduction of Chrysallida as the genus name for this extended group is probably due to Thiele (1929). Earlier authors used the name in a more restricted sense, mostly as a subgenus or section. Thiele apparently adopted the name from Dall & Bartsch (1904), as the oldest of the names used by these authors for members of Odostomia (sensu Dall & Bartsch) with axial sculpture. The name was originally introduced by Carpenter (1856) for a group of East Pacific, somewhat pupiform shells with flattened whorls, heavy nodulous sculpture (axial ribs crossed by spirals of equal strength) and several basal cords. The first to adopt this genus name for our European species was apparently Winckworth (1932), who followed Thiele (1929) in this case. Since that time it has remained in the European literature, as the name for most European smaller pyramidellids with both spiral and axial sculpture and with an intorted protoconch. All authors of recent revisions (e.g. Warén 1991, Schander 1995 and van Aartsen et al. 2000) agree that Chrysallida is a heterogeneous group, but as no global revision of this large group has been made they refrain from using any other genus names for species living in our waters. As Chrysallida , both because of its type species from the tropical eastern Pacific, and its characteristic nodulous sculpture is unlikely to have any close relatives in our waters (see however van Aartsen et al. 2000), I propose that the majority of the Northeast Atlantic species should be grouped together in Parthenina . Spiralinella is not included due to its deviating mitochondrial16S gene ( Schander et al. 2003). There are still a number of species with deviating sculpture (soft parts unknown) which may validate the placement in a new genus. Until they are better known, I keep these few species in Chrysallida s.l.