A pretty Cuban operculate

kw: species summaries, natural history, natural science, museums, research, photographs

To summarize what I wrote a few days ago, an operculate terrestrial snail is one that has no lung, as most land snails do, but respires using gills kept inside the shell, and it has a "door", the operculum, that can seal the shell shut when dryness or predators threaten. The genus with which I have been involved the past few days, Chondropoma, is found primarily in Cuba and around the Caribbean islands.

This species, Chondropoma presasianum (Gundlach in Pfeiffer, 1863), has been collected primarily in the Matanzas Province of Cuba, but is likely to exist (or have existed) over much of the island. El Palenque is a hill or small mountain with a steep flank that looks like a palisade ("palenque"), near the border between Matanzas and Mayabeque Provinces.

Many species in the genus Chondropoma have flared apertures, as these do. Juveniles do not have the flare, and in the past were often thought to be of different species.

This lot of 10 shells was given to George and Mary Kline by the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology (M.C.Z.) in 1956. In 1972 the Klines gave many specimens to the Delaware Museum of Natural History. The Klines collected many of the specimens in their donation, and, as is true for many shell collectors, they had also traded with other collectors and institutions.

I chose these to show because of the detailed decoration of their shells. A lot is going on here: colored bands and stripes, rows and columns of bumps, and the ribs on the flare. Lovely! For those with aperture upward, you can also see that they all retain the operculum. These were originally collected alive and then carefully dried. Such specimens are precious because at some future time a bit of DNA can be extracted for comparison with similar species, and to trace genetic changes in time.