Lophopleurella capensis is a species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 of sea snail

Snail

Snail is a common name applied to most of the members of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have coiled shells in the adult stage. When the word is used in its most general sense, it includes sea snails, land snails and freshwater snails. The word snail without any qualifier is however more often...

, a marine

Marine (ocean)

Marine is an umbrella term. As an adjective it is usually applicable to things relating to the sea or ocean, such as marine biology, marine ecology and marine geology...

 gastropod mollusk in the family Oxynoidae

Oxynoidae

Oxynoidae is a family of sea snails, bubble snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Oxynooidea, an opisthobranch group.This family has no subfamilies.-Genera:The following three genera or four are included in the family Oxynoidae:...

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Lophopleurella capensis is the only species in the genus Lophopleurella.

The specific name "capensis" is from the Latin language

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, meaning "of the Cape", i.e. from the Cape Province

Cape Province

The Province of the Cape of Good Hope was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequently the Republic of South Africa...

".

Distribution

The type locality for this species is South Africa.

Description

This species was originally described under name Lobiger (Lophopleura) capensis by German malacologist Johannes Thiele

Johannes Thiele

Johannes Thiele, full name Karl Hermann Johannes Thiele was a German zoologist specialized in malacology. His Handbuch der systematischen Weichtierkunde is a standard work...

 in 1912 as a result of the Gauss Expedition (1901–1903), that was the first German expedition to Antarctica.

Johannes Thiele described it very briefly stating, that it "has wing-shaped attachments on sides of the body and very small wing on its shell".
German malacologist Adolf Michael Zilch established a new genus Lophopleurella Zilch, 1956 for this species, because the name Lophopleura Ragonot, 1891 had already been occupied and used for a genus of lepidopterans from family Pyralidae

Pyralidae

The Pyralidae or snout moths are a family of Lepidoptera in the ditrysian superfamily Pyraloidea. In many classifications, the grass moths are included in the Pyralidae as a subfamily, making the combined group one of the largest families in the Lepidoptera...

. Zilch only created the new generic name without a review of the genus.