Endangered Species Day 2011

On the occasion of Endangered Species Day 2011, I present one of the most characteristic floral endemics of Malta, namely the Maltese Everlasting (Helichrysum melitense). This plant grows on the cliffs of Dwejra (Gozo) and Fungus Rock, and is most probably extinct in the wild from Malta. The remnants of the population are threatened by quarrying (mostly illegal), dumping of construction materials, alien species and habitat deterioration.

Helichrysum melitense (Pignatti), Dwejra - Għawdex, 21.VI.2008

Species spotlight XI

Mercuria cf. similis (Draparnaud, 1805)
Xlendi, Gozo

The family Hydrobiidae is a large group of small snails with gills (not lungs) living in aquatic habitats, predominantly fresh and brackish. Four representatives are found in the Maltese Islands, the largest of which is the freshwater Mercuria cf. similis (Draparnaud, 1805)*. As a denizen of fresh water bodies, usually close to Blue Clay substrates, Mercuria is rare in Malta but rather more frequent in Gozo. Colonies graze microscopic algae growing on submerged or perennially wet overhangs, and seem to prefer running, clear water. The blue-greyish shell, large shell size and habitat distinguishes it from a similar species, Pseudamnicola moussonii (Calcara, 1841), which will be discussed in a future post.

*In taxonomy, a 'cf.' indicates uncertainty in assigning a specific epithet to a specimen. The uncertainty in this case derives from anatomical differences between Maltese Mercuria and other populations of M. similis.

Mġarr, Gozo

Gozo crocodiles

The picture above shows a fossil skull of the Miocene crocodilian Tomistoma gaudensis (Hulke, 1871) from the Globigerina Limestone of Gozo. This specimen is located at the National Museum of Natural History, Mdina, reg. no. NMNH-T11228. Another species, namely Tomistoma champsoides (Owen in Hulke, 1871) is also known to have occurred in the area now occupied by the Maltese Islands.

Reference:

Hulke, J. W., 1871. Note on some reptilian fossils from Gozo. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, 27 (1-2): 29-33.

Some views of Ramla l-Ħamra, N Gozo

Another cold-blooded encounter

This beautiful reptile, from the Qbajjar area in Western Gozo, is a juvenile specimen of the Western Whip Snake, Hierophis viridiflavus (Lacépède, 1789). It shows a different colour than sexually mature adults, which are of an intense black colour (P. J. Schembri, pers. comm. III.2010).

Crystal clear

These images show the mineral selenite, which is an aggregate of calcium sulphate crystals locally found in the Blue Clay Formation. Photo from Mġarr, Għawdex.

The Maltese letter 'għ' in taxonomy

The 9th letter of the Maltese alphabet is a digraph written as għ and pronounced 'għajn' (aighn in English). In speech, it is a silent consonant which has the function of lengthening the succeeding vowel, therefore a word written as 'għar' (meaning 'cave') would be pronounced something like 'aar'.

Several placenames in the Maltese Islands bear the letter għ - Għarb, Bengħisa and Għargħur being a few examples. Taxonomists naming animals from such places for their type locality have to use gh instead of għ in the specific epithet, simply because the ICZN does not allow for any characters other than the 26 of the Latin alphabet (Article 11.2).

Through the literature cited, I was able to come across five such animals described from the Maltese Islands. Clio ghawdexensis Janssen, 2003 is a fossil pteropod named after the island of Gozo, known in Maltese as Għawdex. Trochoidea gharlapsi Beckmann, 1987 is another snail, this time a recent terrestrial species localized mainly around the area of Għar Lapsi ('Lapsi Cave') in southern Malta (juvenile specimen illustrated below, photographed in December 2009).

However, both the above-mentioned type localities are (nomenclaturally) one-offs. The place to boast most species named for it is Għar Dalam (Dalam Cave), which is an extremely important location for fossils of the dwarf elephants and hippopotami that roamed Malta during the Pleistocene. Armadillidium ghardalamensis Caruso & Hili, 1991 is a woodlouse that is endemic to this cave and another one close by (Għar Ħassan). Scolopax ghardalamensis Fischer & Stephan, 1974 is a fossil bird described from the place, though this is now known to be a junior synonym of Coturnix coturnix (Linn., 1758). Finally, Myotis ghardalamensis Storch, 1974, an early Pleistocene bat, probably ancestral to the more modern species.

The million-dollar question is, how would these names, purely hypothetically or actually, be pronounced? Would the Maltese letter għ retain or lose its linguistic characteristics when included in a species' Latinized name? If binomial names were commonly used, would one speak of Trochoidea 'garlapsi' [sic], or Trochoidea 'aarlapsi' [sic]?

References:

Beckmann, K. -H. (1987). Land und Süßwassermollusken der Maltesischen Inseln. Heldia, 1 (Sonderheft): 1-38.
Caruso, D. & Hili, C. (1991). Nuovi dati sugli isopodi terrestri delle isole dell’arcipelago maltese. Animalia, 18: 115-124 .
Fischer, K. von & Stephan, B. (1974). Eine pleistozäne Avifauna aus der Ghar Dalam-Höhle, Malta. Zeitschrift für Geologische Wissenschaften, 2 (4): 515-523.
Janssen, A. W. (2004), Fossils from the Lower Globigerina Limestone Formation at Wardija, Gozo (Miocene, Aquitanian), with a description of some new pteropod species (Mollusca, Gastropoda). The Central Mediterranean Naturalist, 4 (1): 1-33.
Olsson, S. L. (1976). Fossil woodcocks: an extinct species from Puerto Rico and an invalid species from Malta (Aves: Scolopacidae: Scolopax). Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 89 (20): 265-274.
Storch, G. (1974): Quartäre Fledermaus-Faunen von der Insel Malta. Senckenbergiana Lethaea, 55: 407-434.

Note: I edited my own comment below to articulate a sentence better, the original comment has been deleted and replaced with the slightly amended one.