Shell elongate and narrow, anterior end from umbo relatively short, margin rounded. Posterior end long and almost truncate. Dark olive brown, white internally. Differs from L. froggatti in being narrower in outline. As in all species of the genus, in young specimens the beaks and shell surface lack distinct sculpture.
Lortiella rugata (Sowerby, 1868)
Class Bivalvia
Infraclass Heteroconchia
Cohort Palaeoheterodonta
Order Unionida
Superfamily Unionoidea
Family Hyriidae
Genus Lortiella Iredale,1934
Original name: Mycetopus rugatus Sowerby, 1868. In Sowerby, G.B. (1868). Monograph of the genus Mycetopus. Conchologia Iconica 16, plts 1-3.
Type locality: Victoria River, Northern Territory.
The last major taxonomic revision of Australian freshwater mussels was by McMichael and Hiscock (1958).
Based on the available molecular results, Walker et al. (2014) pointed out that a reassessment of Australian hyriids is needed.
Shallow burrower in burrows in banks streams and rivers. Rarely found under rocks on river bottom. Suspension feeder. Larvae (glochidia) are brooded in the marsupia of the gills of females and, when released, to become parasitic on fish gills or fins where they presumably undergo metamorphosis before dropping to the sediment as free-living juvenile mussels.
Victoria River of the Northern Territory and Ord and Chamberlain Rivers, Western Australia.
Hiscock, I. D. (1960). Supplementary data on freshwater mussels (Mollusca: Pelecypoda) of the Australian region. Australian Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 11: 123-126.
Iredale, T. (1943). A basic list of the fresh water Mollusca of Australia. Australian Zoologist 10: 188-230.
Klunzinger, M. W., Jones, H. A., Keleher, J., & Morgan, D. L. (2013). A new record of Lortiella froggatti Iredale, 1934 (Bivalvia: Unionoida: Hyriidae) from the Pilbara region, Western Australia, with notes on anatomy and geographic range. Records of the Western Australian Museum 28: 1-6.
Lamprell, K. & Healy, J. (1998). Bivalves of Australia, volume 2. Leiden, Backhuys Publishers.
McMichael, D. F. & Hiscock, I. D. (1958). A monograph of the freshwater mussels (Mollusca: Pelecypoda) of the Australian region. Australian Journal of Marine and Freshwater Research 9: 372-508.
Ponder, W. F. & Bayer, M. (2004). A new species of Lortiella (Mollusca: Bivalvia: Unionoidea: Hyriidae) from northern Australia. Molluscan Research 24: 89-102.
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.
Walker, K. F. (1981). The distribution of freshwater mussels (Mollusca: Pelecypoda) in the Australian zoogeographic region. Pp. 1233-1249 in A. Keast. Ecological Biogeography of Australia. The Hague, Dr W. Junk.
Walker, K. F. (2004). A guide to the provisional identification of the freshwater mussels (Unionoida) of Australasia. Albury, Murray Darling Freshwater Research Centre.
Walker, K. F., Byrne, M., Hickey, C. W. & Roper, D. S. (2001). Freshwater Mussels (Hyriidae) of Australasia. Pp. 5-31 in G. Bauer & Wächtler, K. Ecology and Evolution of the Freshwater Mussels Unionoida. Ecological Studies. Berlin, Springer-Verlag.
Walker, K. F., Jones, H. A. & Klunzinger, M. W. (2014). Bivalves in a bottleneck: taxonomy, phylogeography and conservation of freshwater mussels (Bivalvia: Unionoida) in Australasia. Hydrobiologia 735:61–79.
