European marine Mollusca: notes on less well-known species. IV. Vasconiella jeffreysiana (P. Fischer, 1873)

Very recently Cornet (1982) published an interesting paper about Vasconiella jeffreysiana (P. Fischer, 1873). In this article the anatomy of this curious bivalve is described for the first time. After study of the (two) syntypes of an other imperfectly known species, Scintilla crispata (P. Fischer, 1873), from the Jeffreys collection in the U.S. National Museum for Natural History in Washington (USNM) [sample no. 170651] Cornet concludes that this name is based upon the left valve of V. jeffreysiana and so is to be considered a synonym. Thanks to the kind cooperation of Dr. J. Rosewater (USNM) I could also study these syntypes and I agree entirely with Cornet’s conclusion. However, there was an other sample of relevance too [sample no. 170652], This sample is mentioned by Warén (1980: 46). The label with this sample reads: “Lepton lepisma Montr. = Scacchia crispata Folin (Algiers, Joly)”. As the original description of L. lepisma by Monterosato (1878: 314) was based on a valve from Algiers, found by Joly, we may safely assume that the single valve no. 170652 indeed represents L. lepisma Monterosato, 1878. This valve also turned out to be the left valve of V. jeffreysiana thus corroborating a suggestion I made earlier, see Van Aartsen (1975).