Critically Endangered
Short Samoan tree snail
Samoana abbreviata
Short Samoan tree snail is a tree snail in the family Partulidae (order Stylommatophora) — Samoana abbreviata, recorded as Critically Endangered.
Appearance
The shell of Short Samoan tree snail reaches up to 22.6 mm in length, with a height of up to 21 mm and a width of 14 mm. It is dextral and generally yellowish-green in coloration.
Range and habitat
Short Samoan tree snail is endemic to the island of Tutuila in American Samoa, where it occurs at elevations between 150 and 430 m. Empty shells have also been found on Maugaloa Ridge, Pagatatua Ridge, and Levaga Ridge, indicating a historically broader distribution.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
Partula snails graze micro-algae and fungi on leaves at night. They do not recover once a predator snail is established on the island.
Snails move on a single foot and feed with a rasping tongue. Island and spring species rarely recolonise once the site is emptied.
In crisis
Short Samoan tree snail was not observed alive between 1940 and 1998, leading several authors to consider it possibly extinct. Miller (1993) both regarded the species as tentatively extinct. In 1994, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service included the species as a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act, although it was considered probably extinct.
During surveys conducted in 1998, researchers rediscovered living populations on Tutuila, recording 15 live individuals across Alava–Maugaloa Ridge, Faiga Ridge, the Vatia Powerline Trail, Toa Ridge, and Polauta Ridge. The species was the rarest of the three partulid tree snails recorded on Tutuila and was considered to persist in extremely low numbers, indicating that it remained highly endangered despite its rediscovery.
The rosy wolfsnail and habitat clearing are the documented wrecking ball for Partula on Pacific islands.
Short Samoan tree snail 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 Short Samoan tree snail, Wikidata item Q659852. 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.
