Caldwellia philyrina

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Caldwellia philyrina
Enclosure of Caldwellia philyrina in the Naturalis Museum

Enclosure of Caldwellia philyrina in the Naturalis Museum

Systematics
Subordination : Land snails (Stylommatophora)
Superfamily : Helicarionoidea
Family : Helicarionidae
Subfamily : Helicarioninae
Genre : Caldwellia
Type : Caldwellia philyrina
Scientific name
Caldwellia philyrina
( Morelet , 1851)

Caldwellia philyrina is an extinct land snail species that was endemic to Mauritius .

features

The case height was 9 to 11.5 mm and the case diameter 15 to 27 mm. The case was pressed, almost conical, very thin and membranous. There were four rapidly growing turns. The seam was dented. The curvature of the body was keeled sharply, not descending and imperforate. The sculpture was wrinkled at an angle with very narrow, light spiral lines. The outer lip of the mouth was pointed. The transparent bowl was greenish horn-colored.

Systematics

Caldwellia philyrina was described by Arthur Morelet as Nanina philyrina in 1851 . In 1873 Henry Adams established the genus Caldwellia with Caldwellia philyrina as a type species.

status

As early as 1892, Frank Collins Baker described Caldwellia philyrina as rare. The known sites were savannah and the crater of the Trou aux Cerfs volcano near Curepipe , where the species inhabited the damp undergrowth and rocks. Later searches at Trou aux Cerfs found no living snails, but a single old shell, which led to the assumption that the species became extinct during the 1920s when the forest had to give way to a pine plantation . Due to its size, its thin shell and its terrestrial way of life, Caldwellia philyrina was also susceptible to predators, including rats, shrews and tenreks.

literature

  • Owen Lee Griffiths, Francois Benjamin Vincent Florens : A Field Guide to the Non-Marine Molluscs of the Mascarene Islands: (Mauritius, Rodrigues and Reunion) and the Northern Dependencies of Mauritius , Bioculture Press, Mauritius, 2006, p. 114

Web links

Commons : Caldwellia philyrina  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Frank Collins Baker: Notes on a collection of shells from the Mauritius, with a consideration of the genus Magilus of Montfort. Proceedings of the Rochester Academy of Science, 2, 1892: p. 21.