A new member of troglobitic Carychiidae, Koreozospeum nodongense gen. et sp. n. (Gastropoda, Eupulmonata, Ellobioidea) is described from Korea

Abstract

A new genus of troglobitic Carychiidae Jeffreys, 1830 is designated from Nodong Cave, North Chungcheong Province, Danyang, South Korea. This remarkable find represents a great range extension and thus, a highly distant distribution of troglobitic Carychiidae in Asia. The Zospeum-like, carychiid snails were recently included, without a formal description, in records documenting Korean malacofauna. The present paper describes Koreozospeum Jochum & Prozorova, gen. n. and illustrates the type species, Koreozospeum nodongense Lee, Prozorova & Jochum, sp. n. using novel Nano-CT images, including a video, internal shell morphology, SEM and SEM-EDX elemental compositional analysis of the shell.

A morphological gap for Iberian Zospeum filled: Zospeum percostulatum sp. n. (Gastropoda, Eupulmonata, Carychiidae) a new species from Asturias (Spain)

“…Shell morphology alone cannot be seen as sufficiently informative for recognizing microgastropod species of Zospeum, at least in certain species-groups, as was evidenced by Weigand et al (2013) by identifying four genetic lineages having shells like Z. suarezi (but see e.g., Jochum et al 2015b). Although more integrative evidence as anatomical or molecular data is desirable, the description of new clearly recognizable taxa cannot be hindered by arguing the absence of genetic data, which is the rule for most of marine or other subterranean micromolluscs, inclusively with the erection of supraspecific taxa (e.g., Jochum et al 2015a). As Zospeum percostulatum sp.…”

“…The genus Zospeum Bourguignat, 1856 is the only troglobiont genus of land snails present in the Iberian Peninsula, and has also been for a long time the only troglobiont genus of the family Carychiidae until the recent description of the genus Koreozospeum (Jochum et al 2015a). The geographical distribution comprises two disjunct areas: eastern Alps and Dinaric Alps from where about twenty species are known (Bole 1974;Pezzoli 1992;Slapnik and Ozimec 2004;Weigand 2013;Jochum et al 2015b), and the Pyrenean-Cantabrian region from where six species have been described so far.…”

Subterranean life: Behavior, metabolic, and some other adaptations of Astyanax cavefish

“…It is not uncommon for life to adapt to underground environments, and in most phylogenetic groups, there are troglobitic or hypogean organisms. Examples of troglobionts can be found among planarians (Platyhelminthes), brittle stars (Echinoderms), snails (Mollusks), spiders, opilionids and scorpions (Arachnida), beetles, crickets and springtails (Insecta and Entognatha), salamanders (Amphibians), and even snakes (Vertebrates; Allegrucci, Trucchi, & Sbordoni, 2011;Bendik, Meik, Gluesenkamp, Roelke, & Chippindale, 2013;Bribiesca-Contreras et al, 2019;Esposito et al, 2015;Grismer et al, 2014;Jochum, Prozorova, Sharyi-Ool, & Pall-Gergely, 2015;de Souza, Morais, Cordeiro, & Leal-Zanchet, 2015). Most of the cave-adapted organisms display similar morphological, behavioral, and physiological adaptations.…”

Groping through the black box of variability: An integrative taxonomic and nomenclatural re-evaluation of Zospeum isselianum Pollonera, 1887 and allied species using new imaging technology (Nano-CT, SEM), conchological, histological and molecular data (Ellobioidea, Carychiidae)

“…This work augments the initial studies of Giusti (1975) andDe Mattia (2003) and presents the first comprehensive anatomical investigation using a contempory framework for Zospeum Bourguignat, 1856. Since recent work on subterranean microgastropods using X-ray nanotomography (nano-CT) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) effectively differentiated genera of small hypselostomatid snails (see Jochum andMalkowsky 2013, Jochum et al 2014) and highlighted interspecific variation within shells of carychiid morphospecies (Jochum et al , 2015b, we apply the same imaging approach in this study.…”