This species is a member of the B. launcestonensis group which are of medium size for the genus (2.0-4.2 mm in length), and rather globular. Their penis is simple. Found in the mid-north and north-eastern parts of Tasmania.
B. kershawi differs from other members of this group in having smaller shell (except for B. krybetes); female genital system with bursal duct joining oviduct in front of posterior pallial wall, and coiled oviduct extending well behind posterior edge of bursa copulatrix (also in B. wilmotensis). This species is closely related to B. launcestonensis and B. krybetes, and the shell is almost indistinguishable from the latter.
Beddomeia kershawi Ponder & Clark, 1993
Class Gastropoda
Infraclass Caenogastropoda
Order Littorinida
Suborder Rissoidina
Superfamily Truncatelloidea
Family Beddomeiidae
Original name: Beddomeia kershawi Ponder & Clark, 1993. In 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.
Type locality: Lake River, tributary of Macquarie River at Macquarie Settlement on Ross-Cressy Road, Tasmania.
This species occurs in a large stream flowing through paddocks, where it lives under rocks. It was moderately abundant in the 1980s, but has recently become scarce (Karen Richards pers. comm.). Egg capsules presumably like those of other species of Beddomeia - dome-shaped, with broad attachment base, covered with minute, mainly white sand grains and other fragments and containing a single egg. Development direct.
Lake River, Tasmania.
All species of Beddomeia are geographically isolated and have restricted ranges.
This species is on the Tasmanian Threatened Species Protection Act 1995 as Endangered.
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.
