Placostylus ambagiosus watti

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Placostylus ambagiosus watti
Conservation status
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Gastropoda
Order: Pulmonata
Family: Bulimulidae
Genus: Placostylus
Species: P. ambagiosus
Subspecies: P. ambagiosus watti
Trinomial name
Placostylus ambagiosus watti
Powell, 1947

Placostylus ambagiosus watti is a subspecies of very large, air-breathing land snail, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusc in the family Bulimulidae, the bulimulus snails and their allies.

This subspecies is critically endangered.

Contents

[edit] Distribution

This land snail is endemic to the North Cape area in Northland in the North Island of New Zealand. It is found between Waikuku Beach and North Cape.

[edit] Habitat

This snail lives under cover of coastal forest on cliff faces.

[edit] Shell description

The shell is of lighter build than Placostylus ambagiosus whareana, and only the two outer-lip processes and the basal-lip tubercle are well developed, but never so strongly as in the whareana subspecies. Distinctive features of watti are an obscurely malleated or indistinctly spirally ridged surface, and a very dark chocolate-brown periostracum.

The shell height is up to 86 mm, and the width is up to 39 mm.

[edit] Conservatiopn status

Placostylus ambagiosus watti is classified by the New Zealand Department of Conservation as being Nationally Critical.

[edit] References