Stomatellinae Gray 1840

SUBFAMILY: STOMATELLINAE Gray, 1840

No stomatelline vetigastropods have been previously recorded from South Africa. However, during the 1980s and 1990s a considerable amount of stomatelline material was collected in northern Zululand by diving and dredging. To date this material has not been worked through thoroughly and revised. This is mostly due to the fact that the taxonomy of stomatelline gastropods is woefully inadequate and confused. Many nominal species are mere colour variants of others, and many were poorly described and illustrated. The subsequent application of names in the more modern literature has lacked consistency and the type material has rarely been consulted and illustrated using modern methods. Consequently, published figures of identified specimens rarely inspire confidence that the material is correctly named. Similar confusion surrounds the use of supraspecific names within the Stomatellinae since these are mostly based on shell characters alone and the taxa remain poorly circumscribed. Monographic revisionary studies with reference to type material and type species are badly needed. For the time being I include this material in this checklist primarily to draw attention to the presence of at least seven stomatelline species in South Africa.

# Stomatella Lamarck, 1816. Type species (s.d. Anton 1838): Stomatella auricula Lamarck, 1816 (discussed in detail by Herbert 2012).