Eulimella laevis (Brown, 1827)

Høisaeter, Tore, 2014, The Pyramidellidae (Gastropoda, Heterobranchia) of Norway and adjacent waters. A taxonomic review, Fauna norvegica 34, pp. 7-78 : 56

Eulimella laevis (Brown, 1827)

Figures 93-94

Pyramis laevis Brown, 1827 :pl. 50

Eulimella laevis (Brown) - Winckworth 1932; Ankel 1959; Fretter & Graham 1962; Maas 1964; Rodriguez Babio & Thiriot-Quièvreux 1974; McKay & Smith 1979; Fretter et al. 1986; Høisaeter 1986; Graham 1988; Smith & Heppell 1991; Warén 1991; Schander et al. 2003

Melania acicula Philippi, 1836:158

Eulima acicula (Philippi) – Philippi 1844:135

Chemnitzia acicula (Philippi) - Alder 1848; Clark 1855

Odostomia acicula (Philippi) - Jeffreys 1848, 1867; M. Sars 1869, 1870; Jeffreys 1870; Friele 1874; Jeffreys 1884; Marshall 1900

Eulimella acicula (Philippi) - Forbes & Hanley 1850 -51; G.O. Sars 1878; Norman 1879; Petersen 1888; Grieg 1897; Kobelt 1903; Dautzenberg & Fischer 1925; Thorson 1946; Nordsieck 1972; Rolan Mosquero 1983; van Aartsen 1994; Peñas et al. 1996; Høisaeter 2009; Öztürk & Bakir 2013

Turbonilla producta Lovén, 1846b:49 (not Jaminia producta C.B. Adams, 1839 )

Eulimella commutata Monterosato 1884:98 - Ankel 1936; Ankel 1939

Type material: Lost.

Type locality: Shell sand from Dunbar, eastern Scotland.

Material seen: Norway - Skagerrak , 17 spms ; Hordaland, 14 spms; Møre og Romsdal 17 spms; Nord-Trøndelag, 1 spm; Nordland, 7 spms; North Sea shelf, 1 juv. spm (84.05.25.6) ; England, 2 shs ( ZMBN 15698 ) .

Diagnosis: Shell: Eulimella with fairly elongate, almost cylindrical (sometimes somewhat cyrtoconoid) shell. Apical angle 18º or less. Total shell length not exceeding 5 mm. Number of postlarval whorls 9 or less. Shell rather solid, with fine spiral liration and fine sinuous, prosocline growthlines. Whorls slightly convex. Suture shallow. Protoconch helicoid, only slightly inclined (90° to 95°). Soft parts: Head-foot complex shown in Figure 94. Tentacles wide and triangular. Eyes fairly large, placed at base of tentacles. Mentum wide, grooved dorsally and bifid terminally. The pigmented mantle organ is a complicated patchwork with white, black and gray parts, and dorsally with a small yellow ‘stick’ (Figure 94).

Operculum: Not studied.

Biology: Habitat mostly shell sand between 5 and 25 m depth, but no potential host animal known.

Distribution: In Norway it is found from Oslofjorden at least N to 67º16’N ( Jeffreys 1870, M. Sars 1870, and G.O. Sars 1878). G.O. Sars (1878) records several specimens from Skudesnaes (c. 59°09’N) which he presumably regarded as its northern limit. Friele (1874) and Norman (1879) later reported it from several stations near Bergen. Material from the University Museum of Bergen, shows that Friele had material from as far north as the classical locality Kinn outside Florø (c. 61°05’N). In my material 35 specimens and an additional 65 shells from all along the coast north to outside Bodø (67°16’N, 13 m, coarse shell gravel and Laminaria , one specimen and two shells). The abundance of this species increases from north to south, with a maximum in Møre og Romsdal (17 specimens and 22 shells), but only slightly less in the Espegrend area, with 14 specimens. My material from Skagerrak contained a similar number of specimens. Outside Norway it is reported as one of the more common species on the Swedish west coast ( Lovén 1846a, Ankel 1939 and Maas 1964). In Danish waters it is reported from Skagen and south to the middle part of Øresund, where it appears to occur somewhat deeper than in more saline regions ( Collin 1880, Petersen 1888 and Thorson 1946). McKay & Smith (1979) report it from the North Sea coast of Scotland as well as from several localities in the northern North Sea. According to Fretter et al. (1986) it is a southern species ranging from the Black Sea, throughout the Mediterranean and north along the European coast to the British Isles and southern Norway. Peñas et al. (1996) confirm it from the western Mediterranean, and Öztürk & Bakir (2013) as the most abundant species of Eulimella on the Turkish coast. According to van Aartsen et al. (2000) it is very rare in the Canary Islands and on the coast of Mauritania.

Remarks: Because of Jeffreys’ insistence that E. ventricosa was only a variety of this species, the two species have been much confused in the faunistic literature until about 1880. The confusion was conclusively cleared up by G.O. Sars in 1878, and Jeffreys agreed in 1884. The name of this species has been much debated recently, although no one until 1875, seemed to doubt that it should be E. acicula (Philippi) . This name was given to a tertiary fossil from Sicily by Philippi in 1836, and was accepted by almost all authors as the name for the Recent form from the Mediterranean and the Atlantic coast of Europe. Winckworth (1932) discarded E. acicula , and resurrected the older E. laevis (Brown) . Most later authors, especially those working with north and west European material, accepted this latter name. I have not seen a thorough discussion about why Winckworth rejected E. acicula , but presumably it was because the name of Brown was much older. Warén (1991) argues for the retention of Brown’s name, Eulimella laevis for this group of north European pyramidellids. Smith & Heppell (1991) also argues for keeping the oldest name, E. laevis . They state that the good descriptions in Brown (1844), based on the same specimens as illustrated in Brown (1827) eliminates any alternative conclusion. No other species could possibly stem from the sample (shell sand from Dunbar) from which the lost type specimen was taken. However van Aartsen (1994) preferred E. acicula as he argued that the name E. laevis is based on an unrecognisable miniature figure, which might not even be of a pyramidellid. Van Aartsen is not impressed by the redescription in Brown (1837) (the same as referred to as Brown 1844, by Smith & Heppel 1991). Since E. laevis is the oldest name, based on a Recent shell from the North Sea and accepted by several recent authors from the region, this name is here used for the Norwegian specimens.