Madagasikara johnsoni
Apertural view of a shell of Madagasikara johnsoni
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Mollusca
Class:
Gastropoda
(unranked):
clade Caenogastropoda
clade Sorbeoconcha
Superfamily:
Cerithioidea
Family:
Pachychilidae
Genus:
Madagasikara
Species:
M. johnsoni
Binomial name
Madagasikara johnsoni
Synonyms[2]
  • Melanatria johnsoni E. A. Smith, 1822
  • Melanatria fluminea (partim)

Madagasikara johnsoni is a species of tropical freshwater snail with a gill and an operculum, an aquatic gastropod mollusc in the family Pachychilidae.[2]

Distribution

This species is endemic to Madagascar.[2] The only precisely known locality is in Ankara Sontsitra National Park, West Madagaskar.[2]

The type locality was given as "River Kamony, in the north-west of the island",[1] but the thereabouts of this locality has not been exactly determined.[2] The most detailed version of the type locality is that of the Kamoro River drainage in Mahajanga Province, north-west Madagascar.[2]

Description

Madagasikara johnsoni was originally discovered and described (under the name Melanatria johnsoni) by Edgar Albert Smith in 1882.[1]

The shell is large, elongate-pyramidal, turreted, thick, covered with an olive epidermis.[1] It is closely lineated or strigate with longitudinal lines of a darker tint.[1] The shell has nine whorls.[1][2] Whorls are very slightly convex beneath, strongly spirally ribbed and grooved.[1] The ribs are six in number on the upper whorls and rounded; the two above are much more slender than the four beneath; the uppermost borders the suture; the next lies in the concavity at the top of the whorls; and the rest surround the slight convexity, and are three times as broad as the sulci separating them.[1] All the whorls, with the exception of the last four, are coronated at the slight angle below the excavation with very short, hollow, oblique spinules.[1] Some of the spiral grooves exhibit rows of fine granules.[1] The last whorl descends somewhat, giving the shell a slightly distorted appearance.[1] It is girded with about twelve transverse costae, a few at the base being smaller than five principal ones around the middle.[1]

The aperture is bluish within, faintly stained with olive-brown near the margins.[1] The peristome widely and deeply sinuated on the outer lip in the concavity of the whorl, arcuate and prominent in the middle, then shallowly sinuated again.[1] Columellar margin is thickened, free, arcuate, reflexed, ending in a distinct basal sinus.[1]

The width of the shell is 24–28.9 mm.[1][2] The height of the shell is 69.9-77.7 mm.[2] The width of the aperture is 14.0-14.2 mm.[2] The height of the aperture is 20.5-21.0 mm.[2]

There is not known description of operculum.[2] There is also not known anatomy of this species.[2] Reproduction strategy is also unknown.[2]

References

This article incorporates public domain text from the reference[1]

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Smith E. A. (1882). "A contribution to the Molluscan fauna of Madagascar". Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1882: 375-390. pages 383-384, plate 22, figure 6-7.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Köhler, F. & Glaubrecht, M. (2010). "Uncovering an overlooked radiation: molecular phylogeny and biogeography of Madagascar’s endemic river snails (Caenogastropoda: Pachychilidae: Madagasikara gen. nov.). Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 99: 867-894. doi:10.1111/j.1095-8312.2009.01390.x
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