The emerald green snail, green tree snail, or
Manus green tree snail, scientific name ''Papustyla pulcherrima'', sometimes listed as ''Papuina pulcherrima'', is a species of large, air-breathing
tree snail Tree snail is a common name that is applied to various kinds of tropical air-breathing land snails, pulmonate gastropod mollusks that have shells, and that live in trees, in other words, are exclusively arboreal in habitat.
Some other species of a ...
, a
terrestrial pulmonate
Pulmonata or pulmonates, is an informal group (previously an order, and before that a subclass) of snails and slugs characterized by the ability to breathe air, by virtue of having a pallial lung instead of a gill, or gills. The group includ ...
gastropod
The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda ().
This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. T ...
mollusk in the family
Camaenidae.
[MolluscaBase eds. (2021). MolluscaBase. Papustyla pulcherrima (I. Rensch, 1931). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: http://marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=1301562 on 2021-06-08]
The shells of this species were in demand for making jewelry, and were popular with shell collectors and, partly as a result of this, the species is now near being threatened.
Distribution and habitat
''P. pulcherrima'' is
endemic to
Manus Island in
Papua New Guinea. This snail lives in trees, and inhabits
rain forest areas up to above sea level.
Description
The shell of this species is a vivid green color, which is unusual in snails. The green color is however not within the solid,
calcium carbonate part of the shell but instead it is a very thin protein layer known as the
periostracum
The periostracum ( ) is a thin, organic coating (or "skin") that is the outermost layer of the shell of many shelled animals, including molluscs and brachiopods. Among molluscs, it is primarily seen in snails and clams, i.e. in gastropods and ...
. Under the periostracum the shell is yellow.
Endangered
Overharvesting of the species for commercial purposes led to a decline in the population of this snail.
Logging
Logging is the process of cutting, processing, and moving trees to a location for transport. It may include skidding, on-site processing, and loading of trees or logs onto trucks or skeleton cars.
Logging is the beginning of a supply chain ...
of the rain forest where this species lives is also a serious threat to its surviva
The snail and its shell are protected under
CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) and the species is listed in the IUCN Red List as near threatened as of 2015.
''Papustyla pulcherrima'' is the only foreign gastropod species that is listed as Federally Endangered in the United States since 2 June 1970.
[ U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (Last updated 5 January 2010)]
Species Profile for Manus Island Tree snail (''Papustyla pulcherrima'')."
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service website. Accessed 6 January 2010.
References
* Rensch, I. (1931). Beitrag zur Kenntnis der Schneckenfauna der Admiralitätsinseln. Zoologischer Anzeiger. 95(5): 186-194.
External links
Clench, W. J.; Turner, R. D. (1963 ["1962". Monographs of the Genera Papustyla, Forcartia and Meliobba (Papuininae: Camaenidae). Journal of the Malacological Society of Australia. 1(6): 3-33]
Camaenidae
Molluscs of Papua New Guinea
Endemic fauna of Papua New Guinea
Gastropods described in 1931
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot
{{Camaenidae-stub