The shell is broader than species of Coxiella, pale orange, and with convex whorls and impressed sutures. Operculum paucispiral.
Coxielladda gilesi (Angas, 1877)
Class Gastropoda
Infraclass Caenogastropoda
Order Littorinida
Suborder Rissoidina
Superfamily Truncatelloidea
Family Tomichiidae
Genus: Coxielladda Iredale, 1943 (Type species: Paludinella gilesi Angas, 1877; Lake Eyre, South Australia). Coxielladda Iredale & Whitley, 1938 nom. nud. (Köhler & Bouchet 2020).
Original name: Paludinella gilesi Angas,1877. In Angas,G. F.(1877). Descriptions of a new species of Bulimus from Western Australia and of a Paludinella from Lake Eyre, South Australia. Proceedings of the Zoological Society, London 1877: 170 - 177.
Type locality: Shores of Lake Eyre, South Australia.
Synonyms: Blandfordia stirlingi Tate, 1894; Blandfordia stirlingi mammillata Tate, 1894.
Lawrie et al. (2023) have undertaken an assessment of this group and recognised four clades within what was previously treated as a single genus, Coxiella. One of those clades is Coxielladda. They did not formally name the clades or provide names for some new species in that paper but will do so in a forthcoming publication. Hence, in the meantime, we follow Macpherson (1957) who provided the previous taxonomic treatment of this group.
Inhabits salt lakes and saline pools.
The snout is long and the eyes have a cluster of glands above them. Coxiella are dioecious and development is direct; females are oviparous, depositing eggs singly in capsules coated in sand or mud. Coxiella probably feed on organic detritus and they are amphibious.
South Australia (SA Gulfs; SE Coastal divisions) to Western Australia (Indian Ocean division) and south-western Queensland.
For species description see Macpherson (1957).
Previously included in Pomatiopsidae, recent molecular studies have shown that this Coxiella (and by extension Coxielladda), together with two other genera, one from South America and the other from Africa, should be separated as a distinct family.
Beesley, P. L., Ross, G. J. B. & Wells, A., Eds. (1998). Mollusca: The Southern Synthesis. Parts A & B. Melbourne, CSIRO Publishing.
Davis, G. M. (1979). The origin and evolution of the gastropod family Pomatiopsidae, with emphasis on the Mekong River Triculinae. Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia Monographs 20: 1-120.
Iredale, T. (1943). A basic list of the fresh water Mollusca of Australia. Australian Zoologist 10: 188-230.
Köhler, F. & Bouchet, P. (2020). On unavailable genus-group names introduced by Tom Iredale for Australian non-marine gastropods: nomenclatural clarifications and descriptions of new genera. Molluscan Research 40: 150-159.
Lawrie, A. D. A., Chaplin, J., Kirkendale, L., Whisson, C., Pinder, A., & Mlambo, M. C. (2023). Phylogenetic assessment of the halophilic Australian gastropod Coxiella and South African Tomichia resolves taxonomic uncertainties, uncovers new species and supports a Gondwanan link. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 184: 107810.
Macpherson, J. H. (1957). A review of the genus Coxiella Smith, 1894, sensu lato. Western Australian Naturalist 5: 191-204.
Wilke, T. (2019). Pomatiopsidae Stimpson, 1865. Pp. 126-130 in C. Lydeard & Cummings, K. S. Freshwater Mollusks of the World: a Distribution Atlas. Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press.
