Aphally in the stylommatophoran land snail Phaedusa (Clausiliidae: Phaedusinae) in Timor and its systematic implications Frank Köhler and Guilherme Burg Mayer Natural Sciences, Australian Museum, Sydney, Australia ABSTRACT The Clausiliidae (subfamily Phaedusinae) of the Lesser Sunda island of Timor are poorly studied. To date, one species with a rather confusing taxonomic history, Phaedusa timorensis Nordsieck, 2007, has been recorded from West Timor. Based on the study of recently collected material, we present the first record of clausiliids from Timor-Leste (East Timor). Two species, which live in sympatry with each other, are recognised and described based on comparative shell morphology and mitochondrial differentiation: Phaedusa ramelauensis n. sp. and P. angustocostata n. sp. Both species are ovoviviparous, retaining shelled juveniles in their oviducts. One population of P. ramelauensis consists of individuals that lack male organs while having fully functional female organs. As with similar cases in other stylommatophoran families, the aphally is hypothesised to be a byproduct of either within-species polymorphism or hybridisation and to have no bearing on the taxonomy of these terrestrial snails. Because aphally is the key characteristic of Renschiphaedusa Loosjes and Loosjes-van Bemmel, 1973, this genus-level taxon is placed in the synonymy of Phaedusa H. and A. Adams, 1855. http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:528EB46B-5E4F-49B6-AECE-4DFE20B4B4A0 ARTICLE HISTORY Received 16 July 2015 Final version received 21 December 2015 KEYWORDS Lesser Sunda Islands; ovoviviparity; Renschiphaedusa; reproductive anatomy Introduction The Clausiliidae is a hyper-diverse family of terrestrial stylommatophoran gastropods with an almost global distribution and centres of diversity in western Eurasia, eastern Asia and South America. Strangely, Clausiliidae do not occur in North America or in Austra- lia (Uit de Weerd and Gittenberger 2013). Members of this family are characterised by their mostly sinistral, turreted to fusiform shell and the possession of a complex internal mechanism enabling them to close off the aperture of their shell, the clausilial apparatus (CA) (e.g., Nordsieck 2007). Clausiliid snails often dwell on hard substrates, such as rock faces and tree trunks, and are frequently found in mountainous regions, in particular on limestone, where they tend to have narrow ranges of distribution (Loosjes 1953). They are simultaneous hermaphrodites and generally thought to reproduce by outcrossing (Nordsieck 2007). Clausiliid taxonomy relies heavily on shell charac- ters, including features of the CA, and the group has been subdivided into several subfamilies with strong emphasis on these characters. However, a molecular phylogenetic study has recently demonstrated that most shell characters are homoplasious, including fea- tures of the CA with the exception of the apertural for- mation (Uit de Weerd and Gittenberger 2013). In this study, seven highly supported clades have been recog- nised, which are more or less geographically confined and have been considered to represent subfamilies (Uit de Weerd and Gittenberger 2013). One of these clades comprises the Phaedusinae (including Serruli- nae). This subfamily has a disjunct distribution in the eastern Mediterranean to Caucasus region (‘Serrulinae’) and southeastern and eastern Asia (‘Phaedusinae sensu stricto’) (Uit de Weerd and Gittenberger 2013, fig. 4). The Phaedusinae is the only subfamily represented in the Indo-Australian Archipelago (IAA) with the south- ernmost limits of its distribution being on the island of Timor (Nordsieck 2007: map 1 on p. 19). The Phaedusinae of the IAA were most recently sys- tematically revised by Loosjes (1953, 1963) with sup- plementary data provided subsequently by Loosjes and Loosjes-van Bemmel (1973) and Nordsieck (2002, 2007). While this group is generally poorly documen- ted, our knowledge of the Timorese species is particu- larly sparse. This poor knowledge is caused by a general lack of study of the island’s malacofauna. Historically, the works of von Martens (1865, 1867, 1892, 1897) and Rensch (1931, 1935) on non-marine gastropods of Timor are particularly relevant. However, these studies are entirely based on samples from West Timor (formerly a Dutch colony). The eastern part of the island (then a Portuguese colony, later annexed by Indonesia, and now an independent country, Timor-Leste) had remained almost entirely unstudied. © 2016 Crown Copyright in the Commonwealth of Australia 2016 Department of the Environment CONTACT Frank Köhler frank.koehler@austmus.gov.au MOLLUSCAN RESEARCH, 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13235818.2016.1150771 Downloaded by [Australian Museum], [Mr Frank Köhler] at 17:15 08 August 2016