fischeri Vayssiere and taitae Burgess
by Felix Lorenz
Recently I had to opportunity to study the holotype of fischeri Vayssiere. This shell in my opinion is a slightly distorted esontropia. The size of the lacunae as well as the character of the lateral spotting is quite typical and not at all similar to gaskoinii or another Pacific Cribrarula. The type locality of fischeri is >Cotes d- Ile Maurice< and not Tuamotu as stated by other authors, and this is explicitly what the description says. The confusion was risen by Vayssiere himself, who mentions two additional specimens from Upolu (Samoa) and who
bases part of his diagnosis upon these. The two specimens probably were what today is generally called >fischeri<, This use, however is not correct. By describing taitae, Burgess simply replaces the name fischeri of Vayssiere, as the fischeri Holotype is apparently not conspecific with the additional two shells from Upolu mentioned in the description. Later authors claimed the holotype of fischeri to be of >doubtful origin< whereas to me the text in the original description, along with the holotype specimen, is binding. The taxonomical situation should be as follows:
fischeri Vayssiere = synonym of esontropia Duclos
taitae Burgess = valid species
The common usage of the name fischeri for small specimens of gaskoinii from Hawaii is incorrect, as is the use of taitae for such shells. The following table shall help to separate these look-alikes.