Varioconus guanche Tenorio & Abalde & Pardos-Blas & Cmim 2020, comb. nov.
Creators: name: Tenorio, Manuel J.
name: Abalde, Samuel
name: Pardos-Blas, José R.
name: Zardoya, Rafael
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Mollusca
Gastropoda
Neogastropoda
Conidae
Varioconus
Varioconus guanche

description: Varioconus guanche (Lauer, 1993) comb. nov.
Fig. 10K
Conus guanche Lauer, 1993a: 37, figs 3–5.
Conus guanche nitens Lauer, 1993a: 39, figs 6–8.
Lautoconus saharicus Petuch & Berschauer, 2016: 95, fig. 2.
Conus guanche – Monteiro et al. 2004: 50, pls 8–13.
Material examined
Holotype
SPAIN – Canary Islands • 34 mm; Tenerife, Punta Blanca, Los Gigantes; MNHN IM-2000-2553 (Fig. 10K)
Other material
SPAIN – Canary Islands • 1 spec.; Lanzarote, Playa del Cable; 16º41ʹ44ʺ N, 22º58ʹ35ʺ W; Apr. 2014; MNCN exped.; GenBank mitochondrion, partial genome: KY801847; MNCN/ADN 91295.
Geographical distribution
Canary Islands (absent in the western islands), southern Morocco, West Sahara and Mauritania.
Conservation status in IUCN Red List
Least concern.
Remarks
Until its introduction as a new species by Lauer (1993a), there was a large confusion regarding certain populations of cones present in the Canary Islands, referred to as ventricosus, guinaicus or desidiosus (Bandel & Wils 1977; Coomans et al. 1985b; Raybaudi 1992). The taxon Lautoconus desidiosus (A. Adams, 1853) is nowadays considered a form of L. ventricosus (Filmer 2011) or a separate species (Monteiro et al. 2004; WoRMS, accessed March 2020) depending on the author, but in any case is restricted to the Mediterranean Sea and neighboring Atlantic and is not a West African species. In the phylogeny, V. guanche appears deeply nested within the Varioconus clade together with Senegal endemics and is only distantly related to L. ventricosus. It is indeed sister to the species V. unifasciatus, and close to V. guinaicus (Abalde et al. 2017b). The non-planktonic development of V. guanche supposedly limits its capacity of dispersal, resulting in populations having characteristic shell colors and patterns. However, phylogenetic studies focused on V. guanche showed no differentiation of the species within the Canary Islands or between the archipelago and the western African coast indicating recurrent gene flow (Cunha et al. 2014). These findings clearly indicate that the recently introduced taxon Lautoconus saharicus Petuch & Berschauer, 2016 represents the local form of V. guanche from Dahkla Bay, Western Sahara. It lacks taxonomical value and must be considered a junior synonym. The name nitens, initially introduced as a subspecies of V. guanche, is applied to high-spired shells typically from Lanzarote. However, typical V. guanche and high-spired individuals co-occur, hence the separation at subspecific level seems unjustified and nitens represents a synonym (form) of V. guanche.
description: Published as part of Tenorio, Manuel J., Abalde, Samuel, Pardos-Blas, José R. & Zardoya, Rafael, 2020, Taxonomic revision of West African cone snails (Gastropoda: Conidae) based upon mitogenomic studies: implications for conservation, pp. 1-89 in European Journal of Taxonomy 663 (663) on pages 68-69, DOI: 10.5852/ejt.2020.663, http://zenodo.org/record/3890442