Taxonomic reevaluation of Gemmuloborsonia Shuto, 1989 (Gastropoda: Conoidea), with a description of new recent deep-water species

Abstract

The genus Gemmuloborsonia Shuto, 1989, until now known only from Upper Miocene-Lower Pleistocene deposits of the Tethys, is recorded in Recent faunas, with five new bathyal species from New Caledonia, Indonesia, Mozambique Channel, and the Philippines. Radular morphology indicates that Gemmuloborsonia belongs to the subfamily Turrinae, and not to Borsoniinae, where it had been allocated based on shell morphology. Columellar pleats, which have long been considered a synapomorphy of the borsoniid group of genera, have thus been acquired independently in the Turrinae. The consequence of this finding is that the current (sub)family allocation of some genera, based on shell characters only, may need reevaluation.