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The Caucasus and the adjacent Pontic Mountains in north-eastern Anatolia are home to numerous endemic land snail genera and species. The diversity of the region is the result of both intra-regional speciation and the persistence of relict lineages. The same seemed to be true for the genus    Helix   , which has been present in the Greater Caucasus since the Miocene. In the Caucasus region, there are three    Helix    species.    Helix   buchii    (Pontic Mountains and Georgia) and    Helix   albescens    (southern Ukraine to northern Lesser Caucasus) are both separated by deep splits from the major    Helix    clades in the mitochondrial phylogeny. In contrast,    Helix   lucorum    belongs to the Anatolian radiation of    Helix   . At least part of its intraspecific diversification may have occurred in north-eastern Anatolia and the adjacent parts of the Caucasus. Here, we report new evidence suggesting that the Caucasus and the Pontus regions were less important as a refugium of ancient    Helix    lineages or as a diversification centre than previously hypothesised.    Helix   lucorum    probably diversified more westwards, while    H.   buchii    is a less ancient lineage than previously thought.    Helix   albescens    had its long-term refugium on the Crimean Peninsula in southern Ukraine, not in the Caucasus. The Caucasus is close to the eastern limit of the distribution range of the genus and, although the fossil record shows that    Helix    was present there as early as the Miocene, the current diversity of the genus there is the result of much later colonisation.

zoosystematics and evolution

The Caucasus is neither a cradle nor a museum of diversity of the land snail genus    Helix    (  Gastropoda  ,   Stylommatophora  ,   Helicidae  ), while Crimea is home to an ancient lineage