''Partula'' is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of air-breathing tropical

land snail A land snail is any of the numerous species of snail that live on land, as opposed to the sea snails and freshwater snails. ''Land snail'' is the common name for terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial gastropod mollusks that have gastropod shell, shel ...

s, 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 inclu ...

gastropod Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and fro ...

mollusk Mollusca is a phylum of protostomic invertebrate animals, whose members are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 76,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized, making it the second-largest animal phylum after Arthropoda. The ...

s in the family

Partulidae Partulidae is a family (biology), family of air-breathing land snails, Terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial gastropod mollusks in the Taxonomic rank, superfamily Pupilloidea.MolluscaBase eds. (2021). MolluscaBase. Partulidae Pilsbry, 1900. Accessed ...

.Myers, P.; Espinosa, R.; Parr, C. S.; Jones, T.; Hammond, G. S. & Dewey, T. A. (2006). The Animal Diversity Web (online). Accessed at http://animaldiversity.org.ITIS Standard Report Page: Partulidae
/ref> Many species of ''Partula'' are known under the general common names " Polynesian tree snail" and " Moorean viviparous tree snail". Partulids are distributed across of

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

islands, from the

Society Islands The Society Islands ( , officially ; ) are an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean that includes the major islands of Tahiti, Mo'orea, Moorea, Raiatea, Bora Bora and Huahine. Politically, they are part of French Polynesia, an overseas country ...

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

. Once used as decorative items in Polynesian ceremonial wear and jewelry, these small snails (averaging about one-half to three-quarters of an inch in length) gained the attention of science when Dr. Henry Crampton (along with Yoshio Kondo) spent 50 years studying and cataloging partulids, detailing their remarkable array of morphological elements,

ecological niche In ecology, a niche is the match of a species to a specific environmental condition. Three variants of ecological niche are described by It describes how an organism or population responds to the distribution of Resource (biology), resources an ...

s, and behavioral aspects that illustrate adaptive radiation.Gerlach, J. (2016) Icons of Evolution - Pacific island tree snails, family Partulidae. Phelsuma Press, Cambridge
/ref>

Decline

The partulids of the island of

Tahiti Tahiti (; Tahitian language, Tahitian , ; ) is the largest island of the Windward Islands (Society Islands), Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. It is located in the central part of t ...

act as an example of the possible deleterious effects of attempted biological control. After an infestation of the introduced giant African land snails ('' Achatina'' spp.), the carnivorous Florida rosy wolfsnail ('' Euglandina rosea'') was introduced into Tahiti in an attempt to combat the African species. Instead, the rosy wolfsnail hunted the nearly 76 species of ''Partula'' that were endemic to Tahiti and the nearby islands, causing all but 12 species to go extinct within a decade. Scientists were able to save 12 of these species prior to their becoming

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

. Today, the

Zoological Society of London The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) is a charity and organization devoted to the worldwide animal conservation, conservation of animals and their habitat conservation, habitats. It was founded in 1826. Since 1828, it has maintained London Zo ...

runs the Partula Programme Consortium which maintains a captive-breeding programme in the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. As of the 2024 update released on June 27, the

IUCN Red List of Threatened Species The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is an inventory of the global conservation status and extinction risk of biological spe ...

contains 73 ''Partula'' species. Of these, 32 are listed as

, 10 are extinct in the wild, 17 are

critically endangered An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...

, 8 are

endangered An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, inv ...

, 2 are vulnerable, and only 4 species are

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...

. Individuals are being reintroduced to Tahiti from captive breeding programmes since 2014. In April 2023, over 5,000 individual snails from zoos in the United States and the United Kingdom were released on Tahiti and Mo'orea.

Species

Species within the genus ''Partula'' include:

Full list

*The species pages are currently outdated because of the IUCN 2024-1 update. *The list may be currently missing some species. If you notice a missing species please add it.

Collected for ex situ conservation

The ''Partula'' that were collected for '' ex situ'' breeding include the following: Tahiti - '' P. affinis'', '' P. clara'', '' P. hyalina'', '' P. nodosa'', '' P. otaheitana'' Moorea - '' P. aurantia'', '' P. mirabilis'', '' P. mooreana'', '' P. suturalis'', '' P. taeniata'', '' P. tohiveana'' Huahine - '' P. arguta'', '' P. rosea'', '' P. varia'' Raiatea - '' P. faba'', '' P. garrettii ( P. tristis)'', '' P. hebe'', '' P. navigatoria ( P. dentifera)'', '' P. turgida'' Marianas - '' P. gibba'', '' P. langfordi'' PartulaWithoutShell

''P. garrettii'' and ''P. navigatoria'' were misidentified as the species in parentheses next to them.

Surviving species

The list of surviving species are as follows: Tahiti - '' P. affinis'', '' P. clara'', '' P. hyalina'', '' P. incrassa'', '' P. nodosa'', '' P. otaheitana'' Moorea - ''P. mirabilis'''', P. mooreana, P. suturalis, P. taeniata, P. tohiveana'' Huahine - '' P. rosea'', '' P. varia'' Raiatea - '' P. garrettii ( P. tristis)'', '' P. hebe'', '' P. meyeri'', '' P. navigatoria ( P. dentifera)'' Marianas - '' P. gibba'', '' P. langfordi'', '' P. lutaensis'', '' P. radiolata'' Micronesia - '' P. emersoni'', '' P. rufa'' Fiji - '' P. leefei'', '' P. lirata'' Solomon Islands - '' P. cramptoni'', '' P. micans'' Papua New Guinea - '' P. auraniana'', '' P. similaris'' Cook Islands - '' P. assimilis''

Cladogram

Phylogenetic analyses revealed that many of the ''Partula'' species are not

monophyletic In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria: # the grouping contains its own most recent co ...

. The resulting cladogram is shown below.

Ecology

''Partula'' species on Tahiti were usually found on the undersides of the leaves of '' Caladium'' and plantain, although in some valleys, they were frequently found on '' Dracaena'' and

turmeric Turmeric (), or ''Curcuma longa'' (), is a flowering plant in the ginger family Zingiberaceae. It is a perennial, rhizomatous, herbaceous plant native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia that requires temperatures between and high ...

Gallery

Tahitian species

No image available 500 x 500.svg, '' Partula affinis'' No image available 500 x 500.svg, '' Partula clara'' No image available 500 x 500.svg, '' Partula hyalina'' Partula clara incrassa.jpg, '' Partula incrassa'' No image available 500 x 500.svg, '' Partula nodosa'' No image available 500 x 500.svg, '' Partula otaheitana''

Moorean species

No image available 500 x 500.svg, '' Partula mirabilis'' Partula mooreana marwell2.JPG, '' Partula mooreana'' Partula suturalis.jpeg, '' Partula suturalis'' Partula taeniata high quality.jpg, '' Partula taeniata'' Partula tohiveana.JPG, '' Partula tohiveana''

Huahine species

No image available 500 x 500.svg, '' Partula rosea'' Partula varia2.JPG, '' Partula varia''

Raiatean species

No image available 500 x 500.svg, '' Partula garrettii'' No image available 500 x 500.svg, '' Partula hebe'' No image available 500 x 500.svg, '' Partula navigatoria''

Mariana Islands species

Partula gibba.png, '' Partula gibba'' Partula lutaensis (10.3897-zookeys.1037.56303) Figure 4 (cropped).jpg, '' Partula lutaensis'' Partula radiolata USFWS (21191295133) (cropped).jpg, '' Partula radiolata'' Partula langfordi.png, '' Partula langfordi'' (extinct)

References

This article incorporates public domain text from the reference. Mayer A. G. (January 1902). "Some species of ''Partula'' from Tahiti. A study in variation". ''Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy'
XXVI(2)
Cambridge, U.S.A.

External links

* Partula evolution, diversity and conservatio

{{DEFAULTSORT:Partula Gastropod genera Molluscs of Oceania Molluscs of the Pacific Ocean