A very large black, smooth elongate shell that is always decollate in Australian specimens. The upper part of the whorls is concave, especially noticeably in the more mature whorls.
Stenomelania cf. aspirans (Hinds, 1844)
Class Gastropoda
Infraclass Caenogastropoda
Megaorder Cerithiimorpha
Order Cerithiida
Superfamily Cerithioidea
Family Thiaridae
Genus Stenomelania Fischer,1885
Original name: Melania aspirans Hinds, 1844. In Hinds, R. B. (1844). Descriptions of new species of Melania collected during the Voyage of H.M.S. Sulphur. Annals and Magazine of Natural History 14: 8-10.
Type locality: Fiji.
Burrows in sediment and gravel in cool running freshwater streams in tropical rainforest areas. The brood pouch of Stenomelania cf. aspirans may contain several hundred juveniles in various stages of development.
Tropical northeast Queensland. Outside of Australia, this species is found in the Bismark Archipelago, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji and Samoa.
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.
Iredale, T. (1943). A basic list of the fresh water Mollusca of Australia. Australian Zoologist 10: 188-230.
Maaß, N. & Glaubrecht, M. (2012). Comparing the reproductive biology of three “marsupial”, eu-viviparous gastropods (Cerithioidea, Thiaridae) from drainages of Australia’s monsoonal north. Zoosystematics and Evolution 88: 293–315.
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.
