''Kimberleymelon tealei'' is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of air-breathing land snail, a

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth. Terrestrial may also refer to: * Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on or near the ground, as opposed to ...

pulmonate gastropod

mollusk Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is e ...

in the family

Camaenidae Camaenidae is a family of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Helicoidea, the typical snails and their allies. This is one of the most diverse families in the clade Stylommatophora. Th ...

. ''Kimberleymelon tealei'' is the only species in the genus ''Kimberleymelon''. The generic name ''Kimberleymelon'' consists of " Kimberley" which is a region in Western Australia, and the suffix "''-melon''" which is from the

Greek language Greek ( el, label= Modern Greek, Ελληνικά, Elliniká, ; grc, Ἑλληνική, Hellēnikḗ) is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece, Cyprus, southern Italy ( Calabria and Salento), southe ...

meaning

melon A melon is any of various plants of the family Cucurbitaceae with sweet, edible, and fleshy fruit. The word "melon" can refer to either the plant or specifically to the fruit. Botanically, a melon is a kind of berry, specifically a " pepo". Th ...

, the fleshy fruit of the family Cucurbitaceae, a reference to the globular shape of the shell. The specific name "''tealei''" is in honor of Roy Teale, the

malacologist Malacology is the branch of invertebrate zoology that deals with the study of the Mollusca (mollusks or molluscs), the second-largest phylum of animals in terms of described species after the arthropods. Mollusks include snails and slugs, clams, ...

who collected the

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of sever ...

of this species.

Distribution

The type locality of ''Kimberleymelon tealei'' is

Middle Osborn Island Middle Osborn Island is an island off the coast of the Kimberley region in Western Australia. Located on the western side of Admiralty Gulf and a part of the Bonaparte Archipelago, the island encompasses an area of . It is part of the Osborn ...

Bonaparte Archipelago The Bonaparte Archipelago is a group of islands off the coast of Western Australia in the Kimberley region, within the Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley. The closest inhabited place is Kalumburu located about to the east of the island group. T ...

in north-western Kimberley, Western Australia. This species is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

to Middle Osborn Island.

Shell description

The

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses ** Thin-shell structure Science Biology * Seashell, a hard o ...

is of trochiform shape, high-spired and has a closed umbilicus. The shell dimensions are 20–28 mm in diameter and 18–26 mm in height.

References

Camaenidae Gastropods described in 2010 {{Camaenidae-stub