New Insights in the Helicellini Ihering, 1909 with Description of <i>Kherattolactea</i> gen. nov. and the First Record of <i>Orexana</i> Chueca, Gómez-Moliner, Madeira & Pfenninger, 2018 from Algeria

Recent sampling efforts in northern Algeria and the investigation of some collection material has revealed the presence of taxa with conchological and genital morphological similarities to the “<i>Candidula</i>-like” group. A detailed investigation of the anatomy of the genitalia combined with the analysis of two mitochondrial and two nuclear markers of representatives of the known genera as well as two Algerian taxa has been conducted. The result confirms the affiliation of the latter in the “<i>Candidula</i>-like” complex. Comparative anatomical analysis led to the description of a new genus, <i>Kherattolactea</i> gen. nov., endemic to northern Algeria with <i>Xerophila keratae</i> Kobelt 1892 as the type species. The anatomical distinction corroborates the result of the molecular analysis that reveals apomorphic nucleotide substitution. Moreover, the result of the combined analysis provides the first confirmed record of the genus <i>Orexana</i> Chueca, Gómez-Moliner, Madeira & Pfenninger, 2018, in north Africa, represented by the species <i>Orexana lemoinei</i> (Kobelt, 1882) nov. comb. A new <i>Xerogyra</i> species, <i>Xerogyra hallgassi</i> nov. sp., from the Apennine Mountain has been described based on the combination of morphoanatomical and molecular traits. For the first time, the morphoanatomical description of the known <i>Xerogyra</i> species has been presented.