A peer-reviewed open-access journal ZooKeys 770: 43–103 (2018)A late Pleistocene gastropod fauna from the northern Caspian Sea... 43 doi: 10.3897/zookeys.770.25365 RESEARCH ARTICLE 4 ZooKeys http://zookeys.pensoft.net Launched to accelerate biodiversity research A late Pleistocene gastropod fauna from the northern Caspian Sea with implications for Pontocaspian gastropod taxonomy Thomas A. Neubauer1,2, Sabrina van de Velde2, Tamara Yanina3, Frank P. Wesselingh2 1 Department of Animal Ecology and Systematics, Justus Liebig University, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 26–32 IFZ, 35392 Giessen, Germany 2 Naturalis Biodiversity Center, P.O. Box 9517, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands 3 Moscow State University, Faculty of Geography, Leninskie Gory, 1, 119991 Moscow, Russia Corresponding author: Thomas A. Neubauer (
[email protected]) Academic editor: M. Haase | Received 29 March 2018 | Accepted 20 May 2018 | Published 4 July 2018 http://zoobank.org/4D984FDD-9366-4D8B-8A8E-9D4B3F9B8EFB Citation: Neubauer TA, van de Velde S, Yanina T, Wesselingh FP (2018) A late Pleistocene gastropod fauna from the northern Caspian Sea with implications for Pontocaspian gastropod taxonomy. ZooKeys 770: 43–103. https://doi. org/10.3897/zookeys.770.25365 Abstract The present paper details a very diverse non-marine gastropod fauna retrieved from Caspian Pleistocene deposits along the Volga River north of Astrakhan (Russia). During time of deposition (early Late Pleis- tocene, late Khazarian regional substage), the area was situated in shallow water of the greatly expanded Caspian Sea. The fauna contains 24 species, of which 16 are endemic to the Pontocaspian region and 15 to the Caspian Sea.