Pterynotus Swainson 1833

Genus Pterynotus Swainson, 1833 TYPE SPECIES. — Murex pinnatus Swainson, 1822, by monotypy. Recent: Indo-Pacific. COMMENTS ON THE SUBFAMILIAL PLACE As seen above, fossil and Recent members of the genus Timbellus de Gregorio, 1885 were usually attributed to Pterynotus Swainson, 1833 (e.g., Cossmann 1889; Cossmann & Pissarro 1911; Glibert 1963; Vokes 1970) in the subfamily Muricinae. Based on molecular data, Barco et al. (2010, 2012) studied the phylogenetic relationships of Pterynotus represented by P. elongatus (Lightfoot, 1786) and P. fulgens Houart, 1988 and Pterymarchia Houart, 1995 represented by P. martinetana (Röding, 1798). These authors demonstrated firstly, that Pterynotus and Pterymarchia are not phylogenetically close to P. fulgens Houart, 1988 and secondly, none of these taxa are included within the clade of the Muricinae.According toMerle et al. (2011), Pterynotus fulgens is closely related to the type species of Timbellus and is now attributed to that genus. Thus, Merle et al. (2011) and Houart (2018) rejected Pterynotus and Pterymarchia from the Muricinae. Russini et al. (2023: 866) place Pterynotus in incertae sedis and consider that it likely represented an independent lineage, worthy of subfamilial rank.