''Alcadia conuloides'' is a

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

tropical The tropics are the regions of Earth surrounding the equator, where the sun may shine directly overhead. This contrasts with the temperate or polar regions of Earth, where the Sun can never be directly overhead. This is because of Earth's ax ...

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 ...

with an operculum, a

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth, as opposed to extraterrestrial. 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 o ...

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 ...

in the family

Helicinidae Helicinidae is a family of small tropical land snails, terrestrial operculate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Helicinoidea. Name These snails are not at all closely related to the air-breathing land snails, despite a superficial simila ...

Taxonomy

Robert John Lechmere Guppy Robert John Lechmere Guppy (15 August 1836 in London – 5 August 1916 in San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago) was a British-born naturalist after whom the guppy is named. He contributed much to the geology, palaeontology and zoology of the West In ...

(1895) considered this species synonymous with the taxon '' Schrammia schrammia'' (Crosse, 1872) from

Guadeloupe Guadeloupe is an Overseas departments and regions of France, overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands—Basse-Terre Island, Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Guadeloupe, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galant ...

, but that species is larger and higher-spired, and therefore Guppy's name was resurrected.

Horace Burrington Baker Horace Burrington Baker (1889–1971) was an American malacologist.Coan E. V. & Kabat A. R. (January 27, 2017)2,400 years of malacology, 14th ed., 1443 pp. American Malacological Society. He was born in Sioux City, Iowa, and after serving as a l ...

(1927) suggested that Guppy's species probably belongs in the genus ''Alcadia'', subgenus ''Idesa''. Until the status of '' Schrammia'' and its two species can be resolved, we follow the last published work, that of Baker (1927).

Distribution

This species is endemic to the West Indian island of

Dominica Dominica, officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island country in the Caribbean. It is part of the Windward Islands chain in the Lesser Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean Sea. The capital, Roseau, is located on the western side of t ...

Ecology

This small species lives on wet leaves, being particularly active after rainfall, and on damp

leaf litter Plant litter (also leaf litter, tree litter, soil litter, litterfall, or duff) is dead plant material (such as leaves, bark, needles, twigs, and cladodes) that has fallen to the ground. This detritus or dead organic material and its constituen ...

. It is believed to feed on encrusting algae.

References

This article incorporates CC-BY-3.0 text from the reference.Robinson D. G., Hovestadt A., Fields A. & Breure A. S. H. (July 2009). "The land Mollusca of Dominica (Lesser Antilles), with notes on some enigmatic or rare species". ''Zoologische Mededelingen'' 83 http://www.zoologischemededelingen.nl/83/nr03/a13 {{DEFAULTSORT:Alcadia Conuloides Helicinidae Endemic fauna of Dominica Gastropods described in 1868