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Epitonium (Parviscala) vaillanti (Jousseaume, 1912), a species previously known only from the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, is recorded for the first time in the Mediterranean Sea. This new Erythrean alien was found in the course of examination of unidentified specimens from Mediterranean coast of Israel, showed morphological features unknown to any previously recorded Mediterranean epitonid species. To confirm identification, morphological comparison with the syntypic serie of Avalitiscala vaillanti Jousseaume, 1912, stored in the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle de Paris (MNHN) was performed and some remarks of the taxonomy of the species are discussed.

Mesophotic assemblages are the next frontier of marine exploration in the Mediterranean Sea. Located below recreational scuba diving depths, they are difficult to access but host a diverse array of habitats structured by large invertebrate species. The Eastern Mediterranean has been much less explored than the western part of the basin and its mesophotic habitats are virtually unknown. We here describe two mesophotic (77–92 m depth) molluscan assemblages at a rocky reef and on a soft substrate off northern Israel. We record 172 species, of which 43 (25%) are first records for Israel and increase its overall marine molluscan diversity by 7%. Only five of these species have been reported in recent surveys of the nearby Lebanon, suggesting that our results are robust at a broader scale than our study area and that the reported west-to-east declining diversity gradient in the Mediterranean needs a reappraisal based on proper sampling of the eastern basin. We found only four (2%) non-indigenous species, represented by seven (0.5%) specimens. These results suggest that pristine native assemblages still thrive at this depth in Israel, in contrast to the shallow subtidal heavily affected by global warming and biological invasions, calling for strong conservation actions for these valuable but vulnerable habitats. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10531-020-02063-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

New data on 52 non-indigenous mollusks in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea is reported. Fossarus sp. (aff. aptus sensu Blatterer 2019), Coriophora lessepsiana Albano, Bakker & Sabelli, sp. nov., Cerithiopsis sp. aff. pulvis, Joculator problematicus Albano & Steger, sp. nov., Cerithiopsis sp., Elachisina sp., Iravadia aff. elongata, Vitrinella aff. Vitrinella sp. 1 (sensu Blatterer 2019), Melanella orientalis, Parvioris aff. dilecta, Odostomia cf. dalli, Oscilla virginiae, Parthenina cossmanni, Parthenina typica, Pyrgulina craticulata, Turbonilla funiculata, Cylichna collyra, Musculus coenobitus, Musculus aff. viridulus, Chavania erythraea, Scintilla cf. violescens, Iacra seychellarum and Corbula erythraeensis are new records for the Mediterranean. An unidentified gastropod, Skeneidae indet., Triphora sp., Hypermastus sp., Sticteulima sp., Vitreolina cf. philippi, Odostomia (s.l.) sp. 1, Henrya (?) sp., and Semelidae sp. are further potential new non-indigenous species although their status should be confirmed upon final taxonomic assessment. Additionally, the status of Dikoleps micalii, Hemiliostraca clandestina comb. nov. and H. athenamariae comb. nov. is changed to non-indigenous, range extensions for nine species and the occurrence of living individuals for species previously recorded from empty shells only are reported. Opimaphora blattereri Albano, Bakker & Sabelli, sp. nov. is described from the Red Sea for comparison with the morphologically similar C. lessepsiana Albano, Bakker & Sabelli, sp. nov. The taxonomic part is followed by a discussion on how intensive fieldwork and cooperation among institutions and individuals enabled such a massive report, and how the poor taxonomic knowledge of the Indo-Pacific fauna hampers non-indigenous species detection and identification. Finally, the hypothesis that the simultaneous analysis of quantitative benthic death assemblages can support the assignment of non-indigenous status to taxonomically undetermined species is discussed.

The upper Miocene mollusc collection from Monti Livornesi, Italy, collected more than a century ago, is confronted with new collections coming from the same localities of Popogna and Quarata. The study concerns the comparison of abundance data of three distinct fossil assemblages from the three vertically-stacked stratigraphic units called Luppiano, Rosignano and Raquese, of upper Tortonian-early Messinian age. Literature and museological data allowed to attribute most museum specimens to one and only one fossil assemblage. Museum collections preserve roughly the same dominant species, with similar ranks as the new quantitative field collections. Significant differences are however evident in the Luppiano assemblage from brackish-water, shallow subtidal bottoms, because new samples yield many species of small size, some of which with high dominance, that are completely lacking in museum collections, suggesting a bias due to size sorting and hinting at the overwhelming contribution of small-sized species to global mollusc diversity. On the other hand the Raquese assemblage, from an open marine shelf setting, can be similarly interpreted from the study of either the museum of new collection, yielding a similar species list and rank. The Rosignano mollusc assemblage, from a bioclastic bottom near a coral patch reef and characterised by fossils with a distinct taphonomic signature, is insufficiently represented in both historical and new collections. The systematics of the three assemblages are revised. The study contributes to the growing literature on museum “dark data” by showing that museum collections may yield abundance data significant for paleobiological analysis., RIVISTA ITALIANA DI PALEONTOLOGIA E STRATIGRAFIA , Vol. 126 No 1 (2020)

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The occurrence of two cephalaspidean gastropods, Atys angustatus and A. macandrewii, in the Mediterranean Sea, is reviewed and their distribution updated. Recent findings confirm that both A. angustatus and A. macandrewii are present in the Eastern Mediterranean. The synonymy of A. angustatus with Rhizorus ovulinus (A. Adams, 1862) and Aliculastrum debilis (Pease, 1860) is discussed and considered erroneous.

A new Mediterranean species of the genus Skenea (Gastropoda, Vetigastropoda, Skeneidae), Skenea giemellorum sp. nov., is described. It is assigned to this genus based on comparison of conchological characters with the type species, Skenea serpuloides, for which sculptural variability is reported. Skenea giemellorum is also compared with other similar species.

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The finding of some specimens of a small pyramidellid along the Mediterranean coasts of Turkey, Israel and Cyprus, previously reported off the south-eastern coast of Turkey (Buzzurro & Greppi, 1996; Buzzurro et al., 2001) as Hinemoa cylindrica (de Folin, 1879), induced us to revise this identification. Hinemoa cylindrica is of Indo-Pacific origin and has been originally attributed to the genus Jaminea Brown, 1827 (not Risso, 1826). Later, it has been transferred to the genus Hinemoa Oliver, 1915 (Buzzurro et al., 2001). However, some details of its morphology do not agree with the description and figure of Jaminea cylindrica given by de Folin (1879). For a more suitable generic placement, we compared the species to the members of some closely resembling taxa in Pyramidellidae Gray, 1840 (e.g., Cingulina, A.Adams, 1860, Hinemoa Oliver, 1915, Miralda A. Adams, 1864, Odetta de Folin, 1870 and Oscilla Adams A., 1861). Its morphological characteristics have led us to assign it to the genus Oscilla as a new species.

The rare bathyal gastropod Diaphana marshalli (Sykes, 1904), previously known only for the Atlantic, is reported for the first time in the Mediterranean. The specimens, collected off Hadera, Israel, are photographed and compared with its Mediterranean congener, D. jonica Di Geronimo, 1974

A small planispiral gastropod, which could not be ascribed to any known species from the Mediterranean or adjacent seas, was found in sediment samples collected in depths between 35 and 52 m in the seas around Sicily. The general shape resmbles the genus Xylodiscula Marshall, 1988, but the protoconch is not heterostrophic and has a distinct sculpture not described from any gastropod. Therefore we describe this new species as Xylodiscula wareni, although it probably does not belong to the genus, instead of creating a new, poorly defined genus.

We report here on some Tricolia specimens found in scattered localities in the vicinity of the Strait of Messina (Calabria and eastern Sicily), which we could not assign to any of the known Mediterranean species from shell morphology. These were considered to be a new species, named Tricolia landiniii after Fabio Landini who was also studying this species in the last days of his life. Characters of the new species are compared to those found in Mediterranean congeners. This new species further increases the number of endemic species of the area.

Globally, the spread of non-indigenous species in marine ecosystems is a major ecological and socio-economical concern. The need for long-term assessment on a large scale is a pre-requisite for understanding the drivers associated with their establishment and expansion. Here, the patterns of invasions of subtidal soft-bottom assemblages of shelled molluscs have been quantified based on a unique dataset collected between 2005 and 2012 along the coast of Israel (SE Mediterranean Sea), a hotspot of bioinvasion. Overall, the number of non-indigenous species doubled between 2005 and 2012. Significant differences in terms of species richness and relative abundance were observed in space and time in both native and non-indigenous species. A combination of enduring disturbance regimes related to human activities and site-specific environmental conditions seem to have a critical role in promoting the observed patterns. Our results emphasize the value of long term broad-scale systematic surveys to the development of effective environmental policies for the control of bioinvasions.