Creature Feature: Glauert’s Land Snail

MuseumLand's blog | Created 1 decade ago

Glauert’s Land Snail - Bothriembryon glauerti Iredale, 1939 (Family Bulimulidae)

Among the many species of the native land snail genus Bothriembryon in the southern areas of Western Australia, this species is distinguished by its relatively large size (shell length about 30 mm) and by the colouring of its periostracum - a glossy greenish brown with irregular darker stripes. The periostracum is the horny outer layer of the shell that covers the calcareous layers laid down on its inner surface as the snail grows.

Glauert's Land Snail - Photo copyright of Yoav Barness

Like many land snails, this species avoids the hot and drying conditions of summer by burying deep in soil often protected by small rocks and boulders. The snails emerge to feed after the onset of prolonged rain and the adults will mate and lay eggs in shallow burrows provided the damp conditions prevail. As conditions start to dry, the snails - even tiny hatchlings - burrow to beat the coming heat and dryness of summer.

The species B. glauerti was named after Mr Ludwig Glauert who was the Curator of the Western Australian Museum between 1927 and 1954. Up until his employment at the Western Australian Museum, very few of Western Australia’s native snail species had been studied and named, so Mr Glauert sent specimens in the Museum’s rapidly growing collection to Mr Tom Iredale, the Curator of Molluscs at the Australian Museum in Sydney. So highly did Mr Iredale regard Mr Glauert that he named the largest and most attractive of the many new land snail species to honour his interest and enthusiasm.

With its distribution confined just to the Stirling Range area, B. glauerti is regarded as a Short Range Endemic (SRE) species and is currently listed as a Priority Two species in the Department of Environment and Conservation’s (DEC) current list of Threatened and Priority Fauna Rankings (17th August 2010).

Authorship Details
Whisson, C.S. & Slack-Smith, S.M., 2011 (April 14), Bothriembryon glauerti Iredale, 1939. [In] The Western Australian Museum’s Website, Available from http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/explore/blogs/MuseumLand/creature-feature-gl...