A new species of Schileykiella from Marettimo (Aegadian Islands, Italy) and discussion of relationships of cilielline hygromiids (Gastropoda, Pulmonata, Hygromiidae)

A new species of Schileykiella, S. bodoni, is described from Marettimo Island, one of the islands of the Aegadian archipelago. The new species is very similar to S. parlatoris but distinguished by: very short hairs on teleoconch; shorter vagina and epiphallus; penial flagellum with knob at base, near point at which vas deferens enters penis; knob corresponding to internal structure bordering vas deferens opening into penis. Schileykiella is a genus of the hygromiids endemic to Sicily and peri-Sicilian islands, with shell pilose, cerebral penial innervation, right ommatophore retractor between penis and vagina, distal female genitalia without digitiform glands and dart-sac complex and distal male genitalia with penial sheath but without penial papilla. Some authors recently proposed that it belongs to the suprageneric group including Ciliella, e.g. the cilielline hygromiids. However this remains a hypothesis. In fact, apart from the very different composition of the lists of taxa included in the ciliellinae hygromiids there is no sure derived character supporting their monophyly.