The periphery is subangled to distinctly angled, with angulation in middle or slightly towards upper surface (viewed with aperture on right). Some fine axial and spiral sculpture. The shell can reach about 5 mm in maximum diameter.
Gyraulus (Gyraulus) meridionalis (Brazier, 1875)
Class Gastropoda
Infraclass Heterobranchia
Megaorder Hygrophila
Order Lymnaeida
Superfamily Planorboidea
Family Planorbidae
Subfamily: Planorbinae
Genus Gyraulus Charpentier, 1837
Original name: Planorbis meridionalis Brazier, 1875. In Brazier, J. (1875). Descriptions of eight species of Australian and Tasmanian land and freshwater shells. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 1: 17-20.
Type locality: Circular Head, Tasmania.
Synonyms: Planorbis tasmanicus Tenison Woods, 1876; Planorbis brazieri Clessin, 1885 (in part).
This species lives on aquatic vegetation and stones in temperate ponds, streams and rivers of south-eastern Australia. Feeds on detritus. Egg mass presumably a jelly strip containing small eggs. Development direct.
Brown (1998 & 2001) described the anatomy of this species.
Tasmania, southern Victoria and south-eastern South Australia.
Brown (2001) considered that the distinct reproductive anatomy of G. meridionalis potentially justified a distinct subgeneric status for this species.
Brown, D. S. (1981). Observations on the Planorbidae from Australia and New Guinea. Journal of the Malacological Society of Australia 5: 67-80.
Brown, D. S. (1998). Freshwater snails of the genus Gyraulus (Gastropoda: Planorbidae) in Australia: the taxa of Tasmania. Molluscan Research 19: 105-154.
Brown, D. S. (2001). Freshwater snails of the genus Gyraulus (Planorbidae) in Australia: taxa of the mainland. Molluscan Research 21: 17-107.
Hubendick, B. (1955). Phylogeny of the Planorbidae. Transactions of the Zoological Society of London 28: 453-542.
Smith, B. J. (1992). Non-marine Mollusca. Pp. i-xii, 1-408 in W. W. K. Houston. Zoological Catalogue of Australia, 8. Canberra, Australian Government Publishing Service.
Smith, B. J. and Kershaw, R. C. (1979). Field guide to the non-marine molluscs of south eastern Australia. Australian National University Press, Canberra, Australia.
Smith, B. J. & Kershaw, R. C. (1981). Tasmanian Land and Freshwater Molluscs. Hobart, University of Tasmania.
