World Congress of Malacology Antwerp ... - Unitas Malacologica

On the contrary in the family Turridae the loss of radula and venom apparatus is a unique event,
which was described, until now, only in one species, Zemacies excelsa Sysoev & Bouchet, 2001.
Loss of the radula in this species was combined with appearance of the unique foregut structure, the
‘pyriform gland’. Basing on the presence of this unusual character in Z. excelsa the new
nominotypical subfamily Zemaciinae was erected. Conchologically Zemaciinae are very close to
Cochlespirinae (Turridae).
Investigations of foregut anatomy of two still unnamed species of Horaiclavus (Turridae,
Crassispirinae) for the first time in the subfamily demonstrated the absence in of the radula, venom
gland and proboscis, as well as the presence of peculiar foregut structure, generally resembling
‘pyriform gland’ of Zemacies excelsa. Other species of Horaiclavus possess radula of typical
‘crassispirine’ type. Anatomy of the foregut of new species is superficially extremely similar to that
of Z. excelsa, although conchological characters clearly preclude placing them in the same subfamily.
Thus previously considered unique foregut arrangement of Zemaciinae appeared at least one more
time independently in the subfamily Crassispirinae and probably does not have high taxonomic value.
This requires reconsideration of the taxonomic status of subfamily Zemaciinae, which should be
considered as a junior synonym of Cochlespirinae. The possible mechanism of functioning of the
‘pyriform gland’ is suggested and discussed.
Molecular Morphology of 18S rDNA of Bivalvia
Feistel, S.; Haszprunar, G. 2
Zoologische Staatssammlung München, Münchhausenstr. 21, 81247 München, Deutschland,
Email: susanne@feistel.org; haszi@zsm.mwn.de
The phylogeny of bivalves (Mollusca) consisting of about 20.000 species is still uncertain.
Conventional morphology and sequence analyses did not provide conclusive results beyond the four
subtaxa Protobranchia, Pteriomorpha, Heterodonta and Schizodonta. This study is concentrated on
the folding patterns of slowly evolving 18S rDNA molecules in expectation of finding “deep
phylogenetic” information, i.e. pre-Cambrian or Cambrian structural signatures.
For this analysis, sequences of pteriomorph 18S rDNA with lengths of about 1800 base pairs each,
available from European Ribosomal RNA Database and GenBank, have been studied.
With publicly available software, 3D molecular structures were created from the primary sequences
und subsequently mapped into 2D patterns. The 2D/3D structures are known to be more conservative
than the primary structure (the linear base sequence). Their morphological characters were detected,
quantified and homologized for the generation of a property matrix. A phylogram has been
constructed by means of a parsimony method. The method is described in detail and preliminary
results are discussed.
Phylogeny and morphological variability in land snails: the Sicilian Marmorana (Pulmonata,
Helicidae)
Fiorentino, Viviana 1 ; Salomone, Nicola 2 ; Manganelli, Guiseppe 1 ; Giusti, Folco 1
1 Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali “G. Sarfatti”, Università di Siena, Via P. A. Mattioli 4, I-53100
Siena, Italy,
Email: vivianafiorentino@unisi.it; manganelli@unisi.it; giustif@unisi.it
2 Dipartimento di Biologia Evolutiva, Via A. Moro 2, 53100 Siena, Italy,
Email: salomone@unisi.it
Land snails have long been recognised as suitable organisms for studying phenotypic differentiation
and phylogeny in relation to geographical distribution. Morphological data (shell and anatomical
biometry on different geographical scales) and partial sequences (COI, 16S) were used to test
whether morphological patterns matched phylogeny in a diversified group of Sicilian rock-dwelling
land snails of the genus Marmorana. The two sets of data were also used to check the taxonomic and
62