Bythinella steffeki Grego & Glöer, 2019, n. sp.
Creators: name: Grego, Jozef
name: Glöer, Peter
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2019
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Mollusca
Gastropoda
Littorinimorpha
Bythinellidae
Bythinella
Bythinella steffeki

description: Bythinella steffeki n. sp.   
(Figs. 2-8, 11)  
 Type locality: Slovensky Kras Mountains, Plešivecká Planina Plateau, Kunova Teplica, Zavodná Vyvieračka spring, inside the SMZ machinery factory. N 48°36.435´; E 20°23.452´, 250m alt. (Fig. 1, Fig. 9).   
 Type material:   
Holot ype: H 2.8 mm; W 1.7 mm; WB 1.1 mm; HA/H 0.47, HB/H 0.28, from type locality: Jozef Grego and Ľubomíra Vavrová leg. 03. August 2018: Coll. SMOPaJ 1/2019.  
Paratypes: same data, coll. SMOPaJ 2/2019- 10 specimens; HNHM-MOL-10438 - 10 specimens, NHMW 111677 - 10 specimens, NMBE 561273 - 10 specimens, MZUSP 144822 - 10 specimens, NHMUK 20190539 - 10 specimens, FMNH 344770 - 10 specimens, OSUM 46106 - 10 specimens, SMF 356660 - 10 specimens, coll. Grego 608 wet and 515 dry specimens, coll. Glöer 10 specimens, coll. T. Čejka 10 specimens; type locality, Jozef Grego leg. 30. August 2014, coll. Grego 189 wet and 2 dry specimens; type locality, Zoltán Peter Erőss, Zoltán Fehér and Jozef Grego, leg. 10. April 2009: HNHM- MOL-097634 - 20specimens and COI in gen bank MK673142; Type locality, Jozef Grego and Jozef Šteffek leg. 24. August 2006, SNM-SZ10921 - 10 specimens, coll. Grego 47 wet and 1dry specimen.  
 Etymology: Named in honor of untimely deceased renowned Slovak malacologist, ecologist and an everhelpful friend Prof. Jozef Šteffek from Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia.   
 Description: Shell: The cylindrical shell is corneous with 4-4.5 whorls which are slightly convex with a deep suture. Anterior to the suture the whorls are somewhat flattened. The aperture is ovate, usually compressed and angled at its apical insertion. The umbilicus is slit-like to closed. The peristome is sharp, straight or slightly reflexed at the umbilicus. The shell is 2.9-3.4 mm high.   
 Animal: The animal is dark to light grey pigmented.   
 Anatomy: The penis and the penial appendix are of the same length; the tubular gland is of medium length, regularly broad and slightly inflated at the distal end.   
 Differentiating characters: It can be distinguished from the other Bythinella spp. of this region by the deep suture and the angle at the top of the aperture. The tubular gland of B. austriaca is slim proximally and thicker at the distal end while in B. steffeki it is regularly stout over the full length.   
 Habitat: The new species inhabits a karstic spring zone of Závodná Vyvieračka (Fig. 9), consisting of an artificial concrete channel, small travertine waterfall, short river bed with larger limestone boulders, and an artificial pond adjacent to the spring. The spring is associated with a short conglomerate cave, inhabited by Hauffenia sp., but without presence of B. steffeki n. sp. The water outlet of the spring seasonally varies from 40-200 l/s with average temperature 10.2° C, pH 7.485 and conductivity 508 μS. The single known locality is inside an engineering plant in an industrial zone. Despite the environmental care of the management, it is still threatened by handling of mineral oils and recycling of iron deposits nearby.   
 Distribution: So far known only from the type locality. All the neighboring springs host only B. austriaca or B. pannonica.   
 Remarks: The population of the new species was monitored by Jozef Šteffek and the first author during the year 2002. That action initiated the inclusion of this site among the 36 monitored localities for B. pannonica within the State Environmental Protection of Slovak Republic program in the years 2013-2015 and a visit in 2018. During the monitoring fresh material for this study was collected. The COI sequence in the GenBank under number MK673142 indicates a close relation of the new species to some of the B. austriaca clades. The shell morphology comparison of Bythinella species reported from Slovakia are at Fig. 10-14.
description: Published as part of Grego, Jozef & Glöer, Peter, 2019, A new Bythinella (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Rissooidea) in the Slovak Republic, pp. 80-85 in Ecologica Montenegrina 21 on pages 81-84, DOI: 10.37828/em.2019.21.9, http://zenodo.org/record/13356217