Aviassiminea is similar to Austroassiminea in shell characters, sharing a small, conical, reddish shell with a narrow, open umbilicus, and convex whorls, but differs in a number of other characters including the shell, which is smaller and narrower, with no distinct spiral and axial sculpture (present in Austroassiminea), and in lacking cephalic tentacles (well developed in Austroassiminea). As in Austroassiminea, the snout is moderately long, bilobed and the foot is large, wide, with the anterior and posterior ends simple and rounded.
Aviassiminea palitans Fukuda & Ponder, 2003
Class Gastropoda
Infraclass Caenogastropoda
Order Littorinida
Suborder Rissoidina
Superfamily Truncatelloidea
Family Assimineidae
Subfamily: Assimineinae
Genus Aviassiminea Fukuda & Ponder, 2003 (Type species Aviassiminea palitans Fukuda & Ponder, 2003).
Original name: Aviassiminea palitans Fukuda & Ponder, 2003. In Fukuda, H. & Ponder, W. F. (2003). Australian freshwater assimineids, with a synopsis of the Recent genus-group taxa of the Assimineidae (Mollusca: Caenogastropoda: Rissooidea). Journal of Natural History 37: 1977-2032.
Type locality: Great Sandy Desert, SSW of Lagrange, Pilbara, Western Australia.
On mud and dead vegetation around edges of freshwater pools, springs and seepage areas. Also in damp crevices in vine thickets.
This species is known from four geographically well-separated areas across the western half of northern Australia: the Pilbara Region; Millstream and springs in the Great Sandy Desert; mid- and eastern coastal Kimberley (Bonaparte Archipelago and northern end of the Ningbing Ranges); and Mataranka (Northern Territory) and nearby areas.
This species does not closely resemble any other Australian assimineid in shell characters other than Austroassiminea letha. There is no other gastropod living in the area occupied by A. palitans that can be easily confused with it. The species, as currently recognised, occurs in springs in the western half of northern Australia.
Fukuda, H. (2019). Assimineidae H. & A. Adams, 1856. Pp. 94-100 in C. Lydeard & Cummings, K. S. Freshwater Mollusks of the World: a Distribution Atlas. Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press.
Fukuda, H. & Ponder, W. F. (2003). Australian freshwater assimineids, with a synopsis of the Recent genus-group taxa of the Assimineidae (Mollusca: Caenogastropoda: Rissooidea). Journal of Natural History 37: 1977-2032.
