Endangered
Victaphanta compacta
Victaphanta compacta
Victaphanta compacta is a land snail in the family Rhytididae (order Stylommatophora), recorded as Endangered.
Appearance
The body of the snail is grey-blue to black. The shell is spherical with four whorls and varies from a glossy dark brown to black with varying tinges of yellow-brown on the inner whorl. The shell has a maximum diameter of 28 mm and is positioned towards the tail of the body.
The shell is thin, light weight and moderately flexible and composed mostly of conchin.
The Otway Black Snail was first described as Paryphanta compacta (Cox and Hedley 1912).
Range and habitat
This species is endemic to Australia and occurs in the Otway Ranges of Victoria. The Otway Black Snail Victaphanta compacta is only found in cold temperate rainforests in Australia. It is one of four species of the carnivorous land snails in the genus Victaphanta and is endemic to the Otway Ranges.
Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.
Diet
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
Victaphanta compacta is 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 Victaphanta compacta, Wikidata item Q3074136. 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.
