Mussel of the Month

It has been more than a year since we have taken up the saga of the revision of Pseudodon sensu lato. October of last year, when Thaiconcha callifera was Mussel of the Month, we summarized the nature of the revisions. What had been 28 species divided between the genera Pseudodon and Pilsbryoconcha (Graf & Cummings, 2007) is now 51 species divided among 11 genera in two subtribes of the Tribe Pseudodontini.

The revisions represent more than just splitting genera and species — although there has been a lot of that. The classification now reflects the available phylogenetic data. The old concept of Pseudodon was not monophyletic. Some species of the former Pseudodon share a more recent common ancestor with Pilsbryoconcha than with other species of the old Pseudodon. The Pseudodontini is divided into two subtribes: Pseudodontina for most species of Pseudodon sensu lato (including Pseudodon sensu stricto) and Pilsbryoconcha (10 total genera), and Indopseudodontina for Indopseudodon.

As we explained in October 2023, the genus Indopseudodon was created as a new name for the genus that had been called “Pseudodon” based on a misidentification of the type species, P. inoscularis. It turns out that the real P. inoscularis belongs in the clade that had recently been called Monodontina. So, the genus that was called Monodontina is now called Pseudodon because that name has priority, and the clade of species that had been called "Pseudodon" was left without a name. Hence, Indopseudodon (Bolotov et al., 2023). There is a nice table that depicts all this in the previous post.

But, (the collective) we are still not done revising the Pseudodontini. Just last month, two more genera and 3 species were added! (Jeratthitikul et al., 2024)