Shells highly polymorphic. Relatively small with pronouncedly stair-like whorls and subsuturally angulated last whorl; spire mostly elongated, often decollated. With distinct axial ribs that apically often run out in short spines. Spiral sculpture of low cords which cross the axials on the lower half of the shell. Aperture oval, slightly narrowing at the upper margin, with the basal lip slightly flaring. Overall brown to black colour, with red to brown dots or flames. The operculum is oval and paucispiral.
Anatomy largely as for the rest of the Thiaridae: pigmented head foot with long, broad bilobed snout, and long, thin tentacles with eyes at their base, a mantle edge with many finger-like papillae. The radula is taenioglossate with loss of the basal extension on the central tooth of the radula. The ctenidium is long with long filaments. Salivary glands are anterior to the nerve ring. The stomach contains a short style sac, a crystalline style and a gastric shield. The female pallial gonoduct is closed along its entire length. A brood pouch is located in the neck region of the head foot in females.
Mieniplotia scabra (Müller, 1774)
Class Gastropoda
Infraclass Caenogastropoda
Megaorder Cerithiimorpha
Order Cerithiida
Superfamily Cerithioidea
Family Thiaridae
Genus Mieniplotia Low & Tan, 2014 (Type species: Buccinum scabrum Müller, 1774; India).
Previously placed in Plotia Röding, 1798 which is now placed on the Official Index of Rejected and Invalid names (IUCN Opinion 386).
Original name: Buccinum scabrum Müller, 1774. In Müller, O.F. 1774 Vermivm Terrestrium et Fluviatilium, seu Animalium Infusorium, Helminthicorum, et Testaceorum, non marinorum Succincta Historia. Havniae& Lipsiae: Heineck& Faber Vol. 2 xxvi 214pp.
Type locality: “In paludosis littoris Coromandel Tranquebari Danorum maxime vulgarae; centena & ultra benevoleutia D.Spengler” ie, India: Tranquebar Coromandel coast.
Synonyms: Helix aspera Gmelin, 1791; Melania spinulosa Lamarck, 1822; Melania doreyana Lesson, 1831; Melania spinescens Lesson, 1831; Melanium granum von dem Busch, 1842; Melania scabrella Mousson, 1848; Melania acanthica Lea, 1850; Melania denticulata Lea, 1850; Melania pagoda Lea, 1850; Melania datura Dohrn, 1858; Melania elegans Reeve, 1859; Melania pugilis Reeve, 1859; Melania rugosa Brot, 1860; Melania snellemanni Schepman, 1880; Melania bockii Brot, 1881; Melania savinieri Morlet, 1884; Melania subcancellata Boettger, 1890; Melania pinguicola Martens in Weber, 1897; Melania varia Bullen, 1904; Melania intrepida Fulton, 1914; Melania sykesi Degner, 1928.
On and in sediment, rocks and on water weeds in estuarine and freshwater rivers and streams. A detritus and algal feeder. Females are parthenogenic and reproduce by releasing at a fairly advanced stage of hatching as crawling juveniles and carry a varying number of embryos in the brood pouch (up to 29 shelled juveniles in different developmental stages).
Monsoonal Northern Territory and tropical northeast Queensland.
Extralimitally from India and the Indian Ocean islands through SE Asia, the Philippines, New Guinea and south-west Pacific.
Shells are highly polymorphic. This species has a large, elongate shell with rounded whorls and strong axial and spiral sculpture. It is usually a light brown colour with dark brown flames and speckles. Thought to be invasive in some countries.
Beesley, P. L., Ross, G. J. B. & Wells, A., Eds. (1998). Mollusca: The Southern Synthesis. Parts A & B. Melbourne, CSIRO Publishing.
Brandt, R. A. M. (1974). The non-marine aquatic Mollusca of Thailand. Archiv Für Molluskenkunde 105: 1-423.
Glaubrecht, M., Brinkmann, N. & Pöppe, J. (2009). Diversity and disparity ‘down under’: systematics, biogeography and reproductive modes of the ‘marsupial’ freshwater Thiaridae (Caenogastropoda, Cerithioidea) in Australia. Zoosystematics and Evolution 85: 199-275.
Glaubrecht, M. & Neiber, M. T. (2019). Thiaridae Gill, 1871 (1823). Pp. 86-89 in C. Lydeard & Cummings, K. S. Freshwater Mollusks of the World: a Distribution Atlas. Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press.
Low M. E. Y. & Tan S. K. (2014). Mieniplotia gen. nov. for Buccinum scabrum O.F. Müller, 1774, with comments on the nomenclature of Pseudoplotia Forcart, 1950, and Tiaropsis Brot, 1870 (Gastropoda: Caenogastropoda: Cerithioidea: Thiaridae). Occasional Molluscan Papers 3: 15-17.
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.
