Page 2 - HartmutNordsieck2013

The material on which the following system is based comprises about 230 samples of Siciliaria (S.) species from the
collection of the Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg (abbreviation: SMF), containing the types of several species taxa, and
80 samples of my own collection, deposited in the Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart (abbreviation: SMNS)
and the Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg. In the Senckenberg collection material collected by Kobelt, K. L. Pfeiffer,
Brandt and Beckmann is kept, in my own collection an important part of the Brandt collection (SMNS) and material
collected by C. and J. Hemmen in 2009 (SMF). 80 samples of all taxa have been subjected to a more thorough
morphological examination.
In collections from the nineteenth century the localities given on the labels have often turned out to be wrong. In this
article only locality data given by collectors, who in my opinion are reliable, are used. In any case, I had to rely on
those data, because until now I had not the opportunity to collect in this region.
Siciliaria Vest and Charpentieria Stabile are separated as genera; for the arguments see Nordsieck (2013) and the website
art. Delimini Italy. The DNA analyses of Uit de Weerd & Gittenberger (2013: tree fig. 3) and Hausdorf (unpubl.: tree
based on 16S mtDNA analysis) confirm this separation; in both trees Charpentieria appears as sister group of a clade
including Siciliaria and Delima Hartmann. In Hausdorf's tree Siciliaria (S.) species come out in two separate subclades,
one with S. septemplicata and S. leucophryna, the other with three species of the nobilis subgroup.
The examination of the genital morphology of several Siciliaria species (listed in Nordsieck 2002: 27) had the result that
the genitalia of all species are similar. Compared with the species of the other Siciliaria subgenera (except S.
(Mauritanica) O. Boettger), the three examined species of Siciliaria (S.) (S. grohmanniana, S. calcarae, S. nobilis) have
a relatively short diverticulum of bursa copulatrix in common. A character which with regard to the results of Hausdorf's
analysis gains in importance is the development of the allospermiduct (a similar case as in Cochlodina, see website art.
Cochlodina diversity). In S. calcarae and S. nobilis (also in the examined S. (Mauritanica) species) the allospermiduct is
not widened along the spermoviduct, in S. grohmanniana , like in all other examined Siciliaria species, it is widened
along the spermoviduct.

1. Diagnoses and distribution

In the following the diagnoses of the species of Siciliaria (S.) and their distribution, as far as known from the examined
material, are given. In notes, geographic forms which could have subspecific rank are characterized. Among them, there
are several forms which have probably originated by interspecies hybridization (see chapter 2.).
The following shell characters have turned out to be informative for species diagnoses (see figs. 1­7):
1. Decollation: Shell entire / decollated.
2. Sculpture: Whorls rib­striated, with sutural papillae / weakly ribbed, papillae still recognizable / strongly ribbed.
3. Cervix of body whorl: Only with basal keel, without dorsal keel / with more or less pronounced dorsal keel.
4. Inferior lamella: Lamella more or less protruding into the lumen of the body whorl, described as: lamella high /
moderately high / low.
5. Anterior upper palatal plica: Only one plica present / two plicae present, upper and lower one / plica missing.
6. Clausilium plate: Palatal edge of plate distally receding, thus distal part narrowed, forming a gutter (figs. 1­2) / not
receding, palatal and columellar edges of plate nearly parallel (figs. 3­7). Palatal edge distally much bent up (figs. 3­4)
/ bent up (figs. 1­2) / somewhat or not bent up (figs. 5­7).
The distribution of the subgenus is restricted to N. W. Sicily: Egadi islands, Sicilian mainland from Trapani in the west
to the western boundary of Madonie in the east, in the south delimited by the imaginary line Trapani–Calatafimi–San
Cipirello–Marineo–Monte San Calogero.
In a larger part of N. W. Sicily two species pairs with identical clausilium plate, but different appearance (shell entire,
nearly smooth and papillate / shell decollated, ribbed) occur (figs. 1­4). The smooth papillate species is adapted to
more shady habitats, while the ribbed one lives in more open rock habitats. Decollation is possibly an adaptation to a
life under stones. One of these species pairs, S. septemplicata / S. grohmanniana (figs. 1­2), is distributed in the east,
the other one, S. calcarae / S. tiberii (figs. 3­4), in a larger part of the region, S. calcarae in the whole region, S. tiberii
only in the central and eastern part. The range restriction of the latter is probably caused by the occurrence of other
rock­dwelling species, those of the nobilis subgroup, in the west.
On the San Vito peninsula, there is a species pair of the nobilis subgroup, which lives in open rock habitats, S. nobilis /
S. spezialensis. Both are adapted to this habitat by a well­developed white surface layer of the shell (fig. 5), looking like
Albinaria species, both are decollated. S. spezialensis exhibits a special closing apparatus (clausilium plate fit into a
frame of palatal plicae, anterior palatal plicae missing), which may better protect it from desiccation. On one mountain