Field Guide to the Non-Marine Molluscs of South Eastern Australia
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Field Guide to the Non-Marine Molluscs of South Eastern Australia Brian J. Smith and Ron C. Kershaw This book was published by ANU Press between 1965–1991. This republication is part of the digitisation project being carried out by Scholarly Information Services/Library and ANU Press. This project aims to make past scholarly works published by The Australian National University available to a global audience under its open-access policy. Field Guide to the Non-Marine Molluscs of South Eastern Australia Brian J. Sm ith and Ron C. Kershaw Australian National University Press, Canberra, Australia, London, UK and Norwalk, Conn., USA 1979 First published in Australia 1979 Printed in Australia at Griffin Press Limited, Netley, S.A., for the Australian National University Press, Canberra © Text: Brian J. Smith and R. C. Kershaw Drawings: Rhyllis J. Plant, 1979 This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism, or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be made to the publisher. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Smith, Brian John. Field guide to the non-marine molluscs of south eastern Australia. Index Bibliography ISBN 0 7081 1817 8 1. Mollusks—Australia—Identification. I. Kershaw, Ronald Calder, joint author. II. Title. 594'.0994. Library of Congress No. 78-74963. United Kingdom, Europe, Middle East, and Africa: Eurospan Ltd, 3 Henrietta St., London. WC2E 8LU, England North America: Books Australia. Norwalk, Conn., USA Southeast Asia: Angus & Robertson (S.E. Asia) Pty Ltd. Singapore Japan: United Publishers Services Ltd, Tokyo We dedicate this work to the memory of Charles J. Gabriel (1879-1963), pioneer in the study of non-marine molluscs of south-eastern Australia Contents Preface ix Molluscs 1 Athoracophoridae 97 Methods of Collection and Achatinellidae 100 Preservation 6 Cionellidae 101 Faunal Regions of Australia 9 Pupillidae 102 South-eastern Australian Faunal Valloniidae 110 Region 11 Ferussaciidae 111 Zoogeography of Non-marine Rhytididae 113 Molluscs of South-eastern Caryodidae 124 Australia 12 Orthalicidae (Bulimulidae) 128 Habitats and Habits 14 Endodont Snails 130 Identification 15 Punctidae 144 Molluscs in the Ecosytem 23 Charopidae 153 Economic Importance 24 Arionidae 193 Key to the Families of Non-marine Zonitidae (Vitrinidae) 196 Molluscs of South-eastern Limacidae 202 Australia 26 Milacidae 205 Viviparidae 37 Cystopeltidae 206 Hydrobiidae 38 Euconulidae 208 Truncatellidae 52 Helicarionidae 210 Bithyniidae 54 Testacellidae 215 Hydrococcidae 55 Camaenidae 218 Thiaridae 57 Bradybaenidae 229 Ellobiidae 58 Helicidae 231 Amphibolidae 66 Hyriidae 241 Lymnaeidae 69 Corbiculidae 253 Ancylidae 72 Sphaeriidae 255 Planorbidae 76 Systematic List 258 Physidae 90 Glossary 272 Onchidiidae 91 References 275 Succineidae 95 Index 279 Preface ix Preface The purpose of this volume is to provide a handbook for the identification of non-marine molluscs of south-eastern Australia, and to make more readily available the descriptions and figures of this fauna. The area covered is the south-eastern Australian faunal region which consists of Victoria, Tasmania and the southern parts of New South Wales and South Australia. Until now there has been no comprehensive text available to enable either the amateur naturalist or the professional researcher to identify members of this group. In many cases the only figures available of the species are either in the original descriptions or in such early work as Cox (1864, 1868) listing Australian land snails, the work of Petterd (1879) for Tasmania or that of Cox & Hedley (1912) and Gabriel (1930, 1939) for Victoria, while others have never been figured. Iredale’s notes (1933) and basic lists (1937, 1938, 1943), while being invaluable as a comprehensive list of nominal species, are of little use to the identity seeker as they contain few descriptions and few useful figures. This book is intended to stand in an intermediate position between Iredale’s Basic Lists and a fully authoritative revision which should ultimately be prepared. It is intended here to outline what is known of the non-marine molluscan fauna of the region, to bring up to date some of the systematics used by Iredale in the Basic Lists, to point out where the many serious gaps occur in our knowledge and understanding of the various groups, and most importantly to provide short descriptions, keys and figures to all recognised species in the area. The area covered by this work is the region south of the 33 degree line of southern latitude running from Newcastle, N.S.W. in the east to just north of Port Pirie on Spencer Gulf, South Australia, in the west. This area forms a natural faunal region with a high percentage of endemic species with little overlap and interchange with other regions of Australia. This will be discussed more fully below. This field guide is heavily orientated towards the practical function of identifying molluscs in the field. To this end, of primary importance is the quality of the illustrations. A special x Preface word of thanks is expressed here to the artist, Ms Rhyllis Plant of the Invertebrate Department of the National Museum. With skill and persistence she has provided the superb drawings which illustrate and describe the species far better than many thousands of words of text. Any mistakes or shortcomings of either the illustrations or text are solely the responsibility of the authors. The idea for the format was based on a similar guide to the land snails of the eastern United States of America by Burch (1962). Our thanks are due to the Director and Council of the National Museum of Victoria, Melbourne for their considerable help in this work. For financial assistance in both production of the text and illustrations our thanks to the Australian Biological Resources Study who also financed the employment of Mrs Elaine Johns to handle the mass of distributional data and to whom thanks are also due. Our thanks are due to the Science and Industry Endowment Fund for the support of one of us (R.C.K.) and also to Mrs Lyn Anderson for typing the manuscript. For information on the many taxonomic and distributional points and problems our thanks go to the staffs of the Mollusc Departments of all the State Museums in Australia, and to the many other professional biologists and amateur naturalists too numerous to mention individually. Last but not least we would like to thank our wives, Beryl Smith and Win Kershaw, for their help and understanding during the preparation of this work. National Museum of Victoria November 1978 Brian J. Smith Ron C. Kershaw. Molluscs 1 Molluscs The phylum Mollusca is the second largest phylum of the animal kingdom, forming a major part of the world fauna. Molluscs are typically soft-bodied coelomate animals without body segmenta tion, which bear a hard external calcareous shell for protection. The body pattern of the molluscs is based on a single archetype, the structures of the six classes being a series of variations on this basic theme. The six classes of the Mollusca are: the Monoplac- ophora—primitive, abyssal pseudosegmented molluscs; the Amphineura—chitons with eight shell plates, and aplacophorans; the Gastropoda—snails, typically with a single external shell and well developed head, the only group to have successfully invaded the land; the Bivalvia—with two hinged shells and no head development; the Scaphopoda—tusk shells, a minor marine group; the Cephalopoda—nautiloids, squid and octopods—active molluscs with high sensory development and prehensile arms (Fig. 1). The main features and characteristics of these classes have been described many times (Morton, 1967; Burch, 1962; Solem, 1974). It is considered sufficient to say that only members of the Gastropoda and the Bivalvia have successfully left the marine habit. Gastropods are the only molluscs to have conquered the land. Fig. 1. The six classes of Mollusca are (a) momoplacophora, (b) amphineura, (c) gastropoda, (d) scaphopoda, (e) bivalvia, (f) cephalopoda 2 Molluscs Before considering the specific groups of molluscs that have left the marine environment, some attention should be given to the new problems which such a radical change in habitat imposes on the animals. In the sea the animals are bathed in a weak salt solution which provides support for heavy shells, lubrication for such functions as locomotion, feeding and reproduction and a means of species dispersal by free-floating planktonic larvae. Freshwater animals also have some of these advantages, though because of the fluctuations in water level and salt concentration in most freshwater habitats, from flood to drought, the aquatic animals must have special adaptations to combat these changes. The low salt levels of most freshwaters pose osmotic problems. The animal has to possess some mechanism for maintaining the salt balance of its internal fluids at a level different from that of the outside medium. When animals leave the aquatic medium and emerge into the air a wide array of new physiological and environmental problems assail them. They lose the support and lubrication benefits of the water as well as its transport properties. Instead of taking dis solved oxygen from the water they are faced with the necessity of extracting gaseous oxygen from the air. They must also evolve a method of internal fertilisation to replace the system of liberating their gametes into the water to be fertilised externally. However, their greatest problem is one of desiccation—the loss of water from the body either via the various life processes or by direct evaporation from the skin. Every phase of their life and every structure in their bodies has to be modified to enable the animals to conserve water. With these factors in mind let us now consider the charac teristics of the main groups of non-marine molluscs.