Critically Endangered
Achatinella fuscobasis
Achatinella fuscobasis
Achatinella fuscobasis is a land snail in the family Achatinellidae (order Stylommatophora), recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
The sinistral shell is ovate, with slightly convex whorls and the suture distinctly margined. The color is glossy white with the last whorl yellowish and ornamented with a median zone and base of brown. The aperture is white and the brown peristome is thick.
The height of the shell is 16.0 mm.
Range and habitat
In the wild these snails are found in high mountains, limited to only the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Their range is limited to around 100-250 square kilometers, with the majority being found on the leeward side of the Ko'olau Mountains. This species is endemic to Hawaii.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
Achatinella's diet consists of microscopic colonies of black mold and fungi that are consumed using the snails radula.
In crisis
In 1996 the IUCN Red List ranked the species as critically endangered. Since these snails reproduce slowly and only exist in a few limited locations, they are very vulnerable to threats. Habitat destruction for agriculture and invasive species are noted as the biggest reason for population decline, though fires, collecting, drought, hurricanes, logging and human recreation are also to blame.
Predation from a variety of introduced species is one of the most notable reasons for the dwindling populations.
CITES lists this taxon on Appendix I. Confirm the current appendix on the CITES checklist.
Achatinella fuscobasis is Critically Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.
Sources
Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Achatinella fuscobasis, Wikidata item Q308727. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.
