Raphitoma
Raphitoma is a genus of sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Raphitomidae. The type species "Pleurotoma hystrix" is a nomen nudum. It has been validated by Bellardi, 1847 as “"Pleurotoma histrix" .” Distribution. This genus occurs in European waters, in the northern part of the Mediterranean Sea, and in the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Verde, West Africa and Angola. Taxonomy history. The genus "Raphitoma" was created in 1847 by Luigi Bellardi (1818-1889) in his "Monographie des Pleurotomes fossiles du Piémont" for species in different groups without operculum. "Raphitoma" now contains many species formerly assigned to "Pleurotoma" , "Clathurella  and Philbertia" . "Philbertia" was synonymized with "Raphitoma" in 1990 because Dr. Philippe Bouchet did not consider valid the subdivision of species into different genera solely on the basis of differences during larval development. In describing "Raphitoma", the World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) relied on an unpublished database "Nomenclator of Molluscan Supraspecific Names" by Bouchet P. & Rocroi J.-P. (2010). In December 2011, the WoRMS database still showed 21 species retaining the genus name "Philbertia". In their publication "A new operational classification of the Conoidea (Gastropoda)", Bouchet, Kantor et al. (2011) still recognize "Philbertia" as a valid genus in the Raphitomidae . As of the 2017 update to the 2005 restructuring of gastropod taxonomy, WoRMS recognizes "Philbertia" as a synonym of "Raphitoma". Description. According to Giannuzzi-Savelli et al. (2018), the shell of the species in this genus are characterized by: Data about the soft parts are scarce and suggest a variation between the species. Species. Species within the genus "Raphitoma" include: † = species is extinct