> Lymnaea (Fossaria) cubensis (Pfeiffer 1839)

> Habitat & Distribution
Baker (1911) considered L. cubensis “typically a tropical species.”  He cited quite a few records from Mexico, South America and the West Indies, but had very spotty data from the US: Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas only.  Hubendick (1951) reported essentially the same range as Baker.  Thus our report of L. cubensis in the Carolinas seem to be a range extension.  We have collected it from five sites in Georgia, four sites in South Carolina and six sites in North Carolina, primarily on mud at the edge of larger coastal plain rivers.

> Ecology & Life history
L. cubensis is quite amphibious, apparently spending a substantial fraction of its life grazing on mud above the water level.  I am unaware of any ecological study specifically directed toward L. cubensis.  The species seems both morphologically and ecologically similar to the temperate American L. humilis or Eurasian L. truncatula, however, about which more is known (Kendall 1953), especially from a parasitological perspective (Hodasi 1972).

> Taxonomy & Systematics
Burch placed cubensis in the subgenus Bakerilymnaea of the genus Fossaria.  But I prefer Hubendick’s (1951) two-genus classification, Fossaria at most a subgenus, for reasons elaborated in essay #1 below.

> Essay #1
See my 28Dec06 post to the FWGNA group reviewing the classification of the Lymnaeidae.

> Essay #2
The taxonomy of Lymnaea cubensis has become elaborately entangled with that of L. humilis.  See my 25June08 essay on the type locality of L. humilis for more.  There are photos of the animal in its typical habitat, and links to good radula photos as well.

> Maps of Lymnaea distribution
Click the small map to enlarge it, or download the state-specific PDFs



North Carolina (PDF)

South Carolina (PDF)

Georgia (PDF)

>References
Baker, F. (1911) The Lymnaeidae of North and Middle America, Recent and Fossil. Special Publication No. 3., Chicago: Chicago Academy of Natural Sciences.  Hodasi, J. (1972)  The effects of Fasciola hepatica on Lymnaea truncatula. Parasitology, 65: 359-369.  Hubendick, B. (1951) Recent Lymnaeidae.  Their variation, morphology, taxonomy, nomenclature, and distribution. Kungl. Svenska Vetensk. Akad. Handl., 3, 1-223.  Kendall, S. (1953)  The life history of Limnaea truncatula under laboratory conditions. J. Helminth, 27: 17-28.  Levy, M., M. Tunis, & H. Isserhoff. (1973)  Population control in snails by natural inhibitors. Nature, 241: 65-66.  Samadi, S., Roumegoux, A., Bargues, M.D., Mas-Coma, S., Yong, M., & Pointier, J-P. (2000)  Morphological Studies of Lymnaeid Snails from the Human Fascioliasis Endemic Zone of Bolivia.  J. Molluscan Stud. 66: 31-44.