Phrantela angulifera Ponder & Clark, 1993

Diagnostic features

Differs from other members of genus in shell having peripheral angulation and protoconch microsculpture of pits arranged in axial bands. This species has a large, distinctive shell which has a weakly angled periphery and a weak columellar bulge. The female genital system is also distinctive in the female genital opening being a very long slit that extends well in front of the capsule gland (Fig. 96A), and the penis, although generally similar, has a minute distal papilla.  In most other characters, this species somewhat resembles P. daveyensis and P. richardsoni.

Classification

Phrantela angulifera Ponder & Clark, 1993

Class Gastropoda

Infraclass Caenogastropoda

Order Littorinida

Suborder Rissoidina

Superfamily Truncatelloidea

Family Beddomeiidae

Genus Phrantela  Iredale, 1943

Original name: Phrantela angulifera Ponder & Clark, 1993. In Ponder, W. F., Clark, G. A., Miller, A. C & Toluzzi, A. (1993). On a major radiation of freshwater snails in Tasmania and eastern Victoria - a preliminary overview of the Beddomeia group (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Hydrobiidae). Invertebrate Taxonomy, 7: 501-750.

Type locality: Small tributary of Dismal Creek, tributary of Hardwood River, Tasmania.

Biology and ecology

On wood, leaves, debris. Stream in button grass and scrub. Egg capsules unknown but probably like those of an unnamed species of Phrantela; small, with single embryo, and covered in coarse sand grains. Development direct.

Distribution

The type locality of this species is a small swampy stream, a tributary of the  Hardwood River, southwest Tasmania. It lives sympatrically with P. bobbrowni, P. daveyensis tristis and a species of Austropyrgus.

Further reading

 

Ponder, W. F., Clark, G. A., Miller, A. C. & Toluzzi, A. (1993). On a major radiation of freshwater snails in Tasmania and eastern Victoria: a preliminary overview of the Beddomeia group (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Hydrobiidae). Invertebrate Taxonomy 7: 501-750.