Taxonomic review of the fossil land gastropod species hitherto placed in the genus Galactochilus SANDBERGER 1875, with the description of a new genus (Gastropoda: Helicoidea)

The genus Galactochilus SANDBERGER has been treated as a typical fossil representative of helicoid land snails in Europe ever since its first description. Several authors have discussed the systematic relationships of the taxon, but all of them overlooked that the type species of the genus is a recent species from the Caribbean. In order to clarify their taxonomic and systematic identity, we re-examined the species formerly assigned to Galactochilus. Oligocene species, here assigned to the genus Galactochiloides WENZ, can be distinguished from Miocene representatives by differences in teleoconch surface ornamentation. For the latter we introduce the new genus Agalactochilus, with the late Miocene Helix leobersdorfensis TROLL as type species. Because of the morphological and, apparently, phylogenetic distinctness of the two genera within the Helicoidea, we propose a new subfamilial taxon, the Galactochiloidini n.trib., which we tentatively rank within the Helicidae: Ariantinae.