Species included in the B. bellii group are small to medium-sized (2.3-3 mm in length), ovate-conic to ovate and usually have a columellar swelling. The penis is simple or with a lenticular brown gland in the middle. Species in this group are restricted to north-western Tasmania.
Differs from the otherwise similar B.protuberata in the shell having a weaker columella swelling. The penis is simple in both species.
Beddomeia bellii Petterd, 1889
Class Gastropoda
Infraclass Caenogastropoda
Order Littorinida
Suborder Rissoidina
Superfamily Truncatelloidea
Family Tateidae
Original name: Beddomeia bellii Petterd, 1889. In Petterd, W. F. (1889). Contributions for a systematic catalogue of the aquatic shells of Tasmania Papers and Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania 1888: 60-83.
Type locality: Heazlewood River, Tasmania.
On and under stones and aquatic vegetation, roots, sedges and leaves in streams. Egg capsules typical of Beddomeia (i.e., dome-shaped, with broad attachment base, covered with minute, mainly white sand grains and other fragments and containing a single egg) found although they could have belonged to B. hullii which occurs sympatrically. Development is direct.
This species is known from Heazlewood River and Thirteen Mile Creek, Tasmania.
All species of Beddomeia are geographically isolated and have restricted ranges.
This species is on the Tasmanian Threatened Species Protection Act 1995 as Rare (small population at risk).
Ponder, W. F., Clark, G. A., Miller, A. C. & Toluzzi, A. (1993). On a major radiation of freshwater snails in Tasmania and eastern Victoria: a preliminary overview of the Beddomeia group (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Hydrobiidae). Invertebrate Taxonomy 7: 501-750.
