A short word on maculifera hawaiiensis Heimann 2005

by Felix Lorenz

In a recent paper in TRITON 12, 2005, E.L. Heimann describes the Hawaiian M. maculifera as a new subspecies, giving the following explanation:

"The Cowry species currently known as Mauritia maculifera Schilder, 1932 was originally known as Cypraea reticulata Martyn, 1784. Martyn mentioned as type locality the Friendly Islands or Iles des Amis. Unfortunately Martyn's Universal Conchologist (1784-1792) has been declared a non-binominal work (Opinion 456 of the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, 15 March 1957). Most of the names appearing in that work have been rejected therefore for use in zoological nomenclature including Cypraea reticulata. Gmelin (1791) was the first to use again the name Cypraea reticulata, but the cowry by that name has turned out to be a synonym of his own Cypraea histrio Gmelin, 1791. Barnes (1824) called Martyn's species Cypraea maculata overlooking the fact that that name was preoccupied already by both Cypraea maculata Donovan, 1810 [= Cribrarula cribraria (Linnaeus, 1758)] and Cypraea maculata Perry, 1811 [= Notocypraea angustata (Gmelin, 1791)]."

He continues:

"Since no valid name was available for Martyn's species it was Schilder (1932: 165), who introduced the new name Mauritia (Arabica) arabica maculifera for that species. Schilder & Schilder (1938) changed the status of this subspecies and considered it for the first time a valid species: Mauritia maculifera. Since the name maculifera had been introduced as a substitute name for Martyn's C. reticulata it has as type Martyn's original figure (Martyn, 1784: fig. 15, reproduced in Chenu, 1845: plt. 5, fig. 2 and here in Figs. 1-2) based on a specimen in the Humphries collection (but now probably lost or unrecognizable) and as type-locality the Friendly Islands or Iles des Amis, which group of islands is now better known as Tonga. This type-figure shows undoubtedly Mauritia maculifera as we call it today."

Then he reproduces Chenu's figure which shows a Hawaiian maculifera.

There are two basic errors which lead Heiman to draw his conclusions:

1) the name reticulata is legit. If not by Martyn and Gmelin, it was made available by Reeve 1845 who correctly illustrates and describes it. Both Illustrations, that of Reeve and that of Chenu show enough detail to safely assign reticulata to the Hawaiian population. Schilder re-named reticulata as maculifera. His formula reveals that he was looking mostly at large specimens (average size 55 mm).

2) The "Friendly Islands" is a general term for various atolls in Polynesia. The name has indeed been used for Tonga, but also Samoa and Hawaii. Schilder designates the type locality of maculifera as Molokai, Hawaii.

For these reasons, Heimanns hawaiiensis is a synonym of M. maculifera maculifera.

I have tried to briefly explain the taxonomy of maculifera in New Worldwide Cowries. Heiman is citing it but he is not giving reasons why all the facts listed there have no impact on his work. Distinguishing the subspecies scindata and martybealsi is strongly supported by DNA studies (Meyer 2004).