Oliva, BRUGUIERE, 1789

Kantor, Yu. I., Fedosov, A. E., Puillandre, N., Bonillo, C. & Bouchet, P., 2017, Returning to the roots: morphology, molecular phylogeny and classification of the Olivoidea (Gastropoda: Neogastropoda), Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 180, pp. 493-541 : 527

GENUS OLIVA BRUGUIÈRE, 1789 (1)

Type species: Voluta oliva Linnaeus, 1758 ; subsequent monotypy by Lamarck, 1799.

Remarks: The genus Oliva is rather heterogeneous and a number of subgenera have been proposed, some of them even raised to full genus ( Petuch & Myers, 2014). Petuch & Sargent (1986) recognized 19 subgenera, of which five were monotypic. Tursch & Greifeneder (2001) discussed briefly their status but abstained from the use of subgenera, since in many cases they did not find clear conchological distinctions between them. On the contrary, Hunon et al. (2009) used as valid most of the subgenera that had been proposed earlier, while still leaving some species in Oliva (e.g. O. lacanientai Greifeneder & Blöcher, 1985 ). Our COI molecular analysis demonstrates that at least some of the subgenera in their current usage are paraphyletic ( Fig. 2 – abbreviated subgenera indicated in bold after species names). Nevertheless, we foresee that, with increased taxon sampling in molecular phylogenies, a number of (sub)genera will be found to be justified. However, with the molecular data currently available, we simply list in the following the accepted subgenera, but abstain from using them.

The species delimitation approach would suggest that O. sericea and O. miniacea would be a single species. However, because they are represented by a single specimen each in our analysis and because the two species are distinct conchologically, we remained conservative and did not change the status of the species. Furthermore, Oliva ‘ lacanientai ’ shows great intraspecific variability and probably represents the species complex. We abstained from description of new species, since the species level taxonomy was beyond the scope of the current paper.