Comment on the proposed conservation of the specific name of Helix papillaris Müller, 1774 (currently Papillifera papillaris; Mollusca, Gastropoda) (Case 3319)

We thank Welter-Schultes (BZN 63: 46–47) for expounding frankly his ideas on how to manage problems of nomenclature in his refusal of our application. We stress, however, that his ideas are not in line with the Code. For example, he writes (p. 46): ‘I think that a simple species taxon possibly being threatened by a senior synonym alone does not justify an application to the Commission. Helix papillaris is not the type species of an important genus . . .’ and a few lines further on: ‘Species names have to be replaced by older synonyms . . . AlthoughPapillifera papillaris is a well-known name, I could also live with this name being changed’. These phrases indicate that he disagrees with some of the main principles of the Code, namely:
(1) ‘The Code . . . provides the name that is to be used for a taxon whatever
taxonomic limits and rank are given to it’ (Point 2 of Principles, p. xix);
(2) ‘Nomenclatural rules are tools that are designed to provide maximum stability compatible with taxonomic freedom. . . . Therefore the rules must enable the Principle of Priority to be set aside on occasions when its application would be destructive of stability or universality, or would cause confusion’ (Point 4 of Principles, p. xx).
  The latter point is particularly interesting in our case, because in the last 50 years papillaris has been cited much more often than bidens (a list of citations is held by the Commission Secretariat).
  In any case, as we demonstrated in our application, problems of priority are secondary: Turbo bidens Linnaeus, 1758 is not a senior synonym of Helix papillaris Müller, but a different species characterized by reddish shell (‘rufescens’) with simply crenulate suture (‘sutura subcrenata’).
  Almost anything is possible, but the suggestion that Linnaeus may have examined an ‘old and eroded’ shell in which ‘the white dots’ (the dots are presumably papillae) ‘are expressed much more faintly than in fresh shells’, seems unlikely, since Linnaeus described the shell as ‘pellucida’, i.e. transparent and therefore fresh.
  Confusion between the two species is impossible since the description given by Müller (1774) for his Helix papillaris is anything but ‘not clear enough’ as Welter-Schultes claims (against Giusti & Manganelli, 2005, p. 131, para. 6). Indeed, it includes certain characters which, coexisting in a shell, are absolutely diagnostic of Müller’s species: shell ashen-grey (‘cinerea’) with sutures bordered by a reddish band and with white papillae (‘intersectiones anfractuum fuscescunt, punctis elevatis sive papillis parvis candidis pulchre interstinctae’).
  As clearly stated by Giusti & Manganelli (2005, p. 132), the purpose of designating a neotype was only to establish a landmark for future morphological and molecular studies.
  The fact that Linnaeus (1767) included Bonanni (1684) in the list of references has no practical consequences, if not as a source of confusion, because Turbo bidens remains that defined by Linnaeus (1758).
  Finally, the last paragraph of Welter-Schultes’s comment contains personal
considerations which are irrelevant to the present problem. These considerations could be more appropriately advanced in the event of a revision of the Code.