Diplommatina azlani: A new species of Land Snail from Sarawak.

The genus Diplommatina is a super-diverse group of forest-dwelling Land Snails, with hundreds of species found across South and East Asia, Indonesia and Austrolasia, including 53 known species on Borneo alone. They are members of the Cyclophoroidea, a group of small Neogastropods which have a mantle modified to form a lung, as well as possessing an operculium (covering for the shell-opening).

In a paper published in the Raffles Bulletin of Zoology on 14 February 2019, Mohammad Effendi bin Marzuki of the Department of Zoology at the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak and the Institute for Tropical Biology and Conservation at the Universiti Malaysia Sabah, describes a new species of Diplommatina from the Santubong National Park in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo.

The new species is named Diplommatina azlani, in honour of the zoologist Mohd Azlan Jayasilan of Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, for his work on conservation and Land Snails in Borneo. The species is distinctive, with a ruby red elongate, sinistral (i.e. coiling to the left, whereas most Snails have shells that are dextral, coiling to the right) shell reaching 3.23–3.68 mm in length. It was found living in leaf litter and plant debris near a rocky stream in lowland mixed Dipterocarp forest.

Diplommatina azlani, (A) left lateral view; (B),ventral view; (C) apical view; (D) apertural view; (E) live animal in natural habitat. Scale bar is 1 mm. Marzuki (2019).

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Two new species of Cyclophoroid Land Snails from Thailand and Peninsula Malaysia.

The Cyclophoroidea are a large and diverse group of terrestrial Gastropods, occupying a range of ecological niches from species that live entirely below the soil surface to species that spend their entire life cycles within the tree canopy. The Snails are disk or turban shaped, often with the final whorl partially disconnected from the rest of the shell, and the Snails are able to seal this with a calcareous operculum.

In a paper published in the Raffles Bulletin of Zoology on 30 May 2014, Chirasak Sutcharit, Piyoros Tongkerd and Somsak Panha of the Animal Systematics Research Unit at the Department of Biology at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok describe two new species of Cyclophoroid Land Snails  from Thailand and Peninsula Malaysia; both are placed in the genus Pterocyclos, with the descriptions forming part of a wider study of the genus in the area.

The first new species is named Pterocyclos diluvium, meaning ‘flood’, in commemoration of the devastating floods suffered in Thailand in 2011, the worst floods in the recorded history of the country. Pterocyclos diluvium has a flattened shell which reaches about 35 mm in width, and can be plain white, plain brown or have a zigzagged pattern. It was found living on limestone substrates in Trang, Patthalung, Satun, Krabi, and Songkhla Provinces in Thailand and Perlis and Kedah States in Malaysia.

Pterocyclos diluvium specimens from (L, M) Tam Sumano in Patthalung Province, Thailand, and (N) Gua Cenderawasih in Perlis State, Malaysia. Sutcharit et al. (2014).

The second new species is named Pterocyclos frednaggsi, in honour of malacologist Fredd Naggs of the Natural History Museum in London, for his enthusiastic support of Land Snail research in Thailand and Southeast Asia. Pterocyclos frednaggsi has a flattened shell reaching about 29 mm in width, dark brown in colour with a zigzag pattern of the early whorls. It was found living on limestone substrates in Pahang and Kelanta States in Malaysia.

Pterocyclos frednaggsi specimens from (Q, R) Bukit Chintamanis in Pahang State, and (S) Gua Musang in Kelanta State, Malaysia. Sutcharit et al. (2014).

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