This huge island, split among three countries, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Brunei, is hot, humid, with large amounts of rainfall. This rainforest is a great territory for terrestrial snails; they like it humid.
Some professors at the University of Malaysia have been surveying these forests for land snails and cataloging their diversity. In the course of their studies they have discovered new species. One recent discovery was name after climate activist Greta Thunberg. The official full name of a species includes the author’(s) names. This particular snail was discovered in Brunei by a group of citizen scientist aiding professor Schilthuizen in his searches.
Here is it full name:
Craspedotropis gretathunbergae Schilthuizen, Lim, Peursen, Alfano, Jenging, Cicuzza, Escoubas, Escoubas, Grafe, Ja, Koomen, Krotoski, Lavezzari, Lim, Maarschall, Slik, Steele, Ting, Zeeland & Njunjić, 2020
Thats a bit of a mouth full so it can be abbreviate:
Craspedotropis gretathunbergae Schilthuizen et al., 2020
Expanded classification for this new snails is:
Animalia
Mollusca
Gastropoda
Caenogastropoda
Cyclophoridae
Craspedotropis
There are more than 800 species in the family Cyclophoridae.
Why name it after Greta, well this group of land snails is known to be sensitive to drought and temperature changes—just like the expectation for climate change.
This is a tiny snail, about 2mm in length. Here it is:
Biodiversity of terrestrial snails:
To determine the biodiversity of land snails another study in this rainforest, surveyed 1 square kilometer: They found 61 species. I need to point out that this survey didn’t search every square cm of that area, just a small fraction of that area was actually sampled. Thus, it likely to yield more species, but the researchers attempted to get a good sample (using thirty-six 20 x 20 meter plots and 4 addition liters of leaf detritus were collected and searched) giving them a good representation of the biodiversity to be expected in theses rainforests.
It’s an interesting study, and worthwhile. Great to be able to get a gauge of biodiversity. But, I have a problem with this publication. Here is a graph of the species incidence, as published in the journal.
What’s missing from this graph? Beside the fact that it is a horrible looking graph (-1); it has no axes labels (-1 pt each so (-2) total, the figure caption is incomplete, 61 species of what? (-2), and don’t put labels at an angle or turn them etc, unless you’re trying to squeeze things in (-1). A max score of 4/10, and that’s being kind.
That graph, by the way, shows a pattern I have written about in this blog before. A common partner of species biodiversity demonstrated in ecosystems throughout the world, showing, that most species are rare (the long right tail of the graph).
Okay, enough of my bitch’en and moaning :-)
Just for giggles here’s another species from this genus:
Sources and Readings:
Schilthuizen M, Rutjes HA. 2001. Land snail diversity in a square kilometre of tropical rainforest in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Journal of Molluscan Studies 67: 417‐423.
Schilthuizen M, Lim JP, van Peursen ADP, Alfano M, Jenging AB, Cicuzza D, Escoubas A, Escoubas P, Grafe U, Ja J, Koomen P, Krotoski A, Lavezzari D, Lim L, Maarschall R, Slik F, Steele D, Ting DTW, van Zeeland I, Njunjić I. 2020. Craspedotropis gretathunbergae, a new species of Cyclophoridae (Gastropoda: Caenogastropoda), discovered and described on a field course to Kuala Belalong rainforest, Brunei. Biodiversity Data Journal 8: e47484.