''Wainuia edwardi'' is a rare

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 ...

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

in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Rhytididae Rhytididae is a Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic family (biology), family of medium-sized predatory air-breathing land snails, carnivorous terrestrial molluscs, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod Mollusca, molluscs in the superfamily Rhytidoidea.Mollus ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only 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 foun ...

to the

South Island The South Island ( , 'the waters of Pounamu, Greenstone') is the largest of the three major islands of New Zealand by surface area, the others being the smaller but more populous North Island and Stewart Island. It is bordered to the north by ...

of New Zealand.

Distribution

This species occurs in

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

Powell A. W. B., ''New Zealand Mollusca'', William Collins Publishers Ltd, Auckland, New Zealand 1979

Feeding habits

''Wainuia edwardi'' feeds mainly on

earthworm An earthworm is a soil-dwelling terrestrial invertebrate that belongs to the phylum Annelida. The term is the common name for the largest members of the class (or subclass, depending on the author) Oligochaeta. In classical systems, they we ...

s.Efford M. G. 2000. ''Consumption of amphipods by the New Zealand landsnail Wainuia urnula (Pulmonata: Rhytididae)''. Journal of Molluscan Studies 66: 45–52
abstract
/ref>

Life cycle

Dimensions of eggs of ''Wainuia edwardi'' (?) are 5 × 3.75 mm. O'Connor A. C. (June) 1945. ''Notes on the Eggs of New Zealand Paryphantidae, With Description of a New Subgenus.'' Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand, volume 5, 1945-46, page
54
57.

References

Rhytididae Gastropods described in 1899 {{Rhytididae-stub