This species is ovate-conic to conic in shape and has fine growth lines and microscopic spiral striae are often present. An umbilicus is absent in both adults and juveniles. The only similar species in northern Australia, G. affinis, differs in its shell being more solid with fine axial rugae on all whorls and more convex whorls.
Gabbia smithii (Tate, 1882)
Class Gastropoda
Infraclass Caenogastropoda
Order Littorinida
Suborder Rissoidina
Superfamily Truncatelloidea
Family Bithyniidae
Original name: Bithinia smithii Tate, 1882. In Tate, R. (1882) The land and freshwater molluscs of tropical South Australia. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 5: 47–56 (replacement name for Bithinia australis Smith, 1882).
Type locality: Victoria River, Northern Territory..
Synonym: Bithinia tryoni Smith, 1887.
This species is commonly abundant, living on macrophytes in billabongs and lagoons on the flood plains of coastal rivers. The lack of varices in many specimens, and prominent growth rings on the operculum suggest that this species usually lives for a single year.
Northern Queensland (Cape York and Gulf of Carpentaria) to eastern Kimberley.
Ponder, W. F. (2003). Monograph of the Australian Bithyniidae (Caenogastropoda: Rissooidea). Zootaxa 230: 1-126.
Tate, R. (1882). The land and freshwater molluscs of tropical South Australia. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 5: 47-56.
Willan, E. C. & Kessner, V. (2021). A conspectus of the freshwater molluscs of the Daly River catchment, Northern Territory. Northern Territory Naturalist 30: 108-137.
