This taxon differs from all the Australian viviparid species in having heavy spiral ridges on the shell. It is unlike any other freshwater snail found in Australia.
Sinotaia guangdungensis (Kobelt, 1906)
Common name: Chinese river snail
Class Gastropoda
Infraclass Caenogastropoda
Informal group Architaenioglossa
Order Viviparida
Superfamily Viviparioidea
Family Viviparidae
Subfamily: Bellamyinae
Genus Sinotaia Haas, 1939 (Type species: Paludina quadrata Benson, 1842; Chusan, (Zhoushan) China)
Original name: Vivipara quadrata heudei var. guangdungensis Kobelt, 1906. In Kobelt, W. (1906). Die Gattung Paludina Lam. (Vivipara Montfort). Neue Folge. In Abbildungen nach der natur. Systematisches Conchylien-Cabinet 1(21): 97-128, plates 15-19, 21.
Type locality: Canton, (Guangzhou) Guangdong Province, China.
Under logs, rocks etc. in river. Although the biology of this taxon has not been studied, its anatomy shows that it is a suspension feeder, using the gill for filtering food from the water as in other viviparids, and that it broods its eggs in the pallial oviduct.
Introduced from southern China by way of the aquarium trade and is (was?) established in the freshwater part of the Lane Cove River and in Centennial Park ponds, Sydney, New South Wales (Shea 1994). They have not been recorded in recent years and there is, to date, no evidence of it having spread beyond those localities.
Previously referred to the African genus Bellamya.
Species of this genus are used for animal and human food in parts of Asia.
A related Asian species, Sinotaia quadrata (Benson, 1842), has been intercepted by Australian Biosecurity. It differs from the present species in lacking strong spiral ridges.
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Ng T. H., Tan S. K. & Yeo D. C. J. (2014). The taxonomy, distribution and introduction history of the earliest reported alien freshwater mollusc in Singapore - Sinotaia guangdungensis (Gastropoda: Vivivapidae). Malacologia 57: 401-408.
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Van Bocxlaer, B. & Strong, E. E. (2019). Viviparidae Gray, 1847. Pp. 43-50 in C. Lydeard & Cummings, K. S. Freshwater Mollusks of the World: a Distribution Atlas. Baltimore, John Hopkins University Press.
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Zilch, A. (1955). Die Typen und Typoide des Natur-Museums Senckenberg, 14: Mollusca, Viviparidae. Archiv für Molluskenkunde 84: 45-86.
