Snails of West Africa

[Kevin]

Ive wondered (and asked a few times on here) what snails are found where, Ive compiled this list of most of the species that are found in West Africa, for anyone thats interested, I'll be using this info to build distribution maps for species, I'll also create lists for snails found in other parts of Africa, and maybe South America afterwards, if I can get enough information on snails from this area.

Snails of West Africa

Archachatina marginata var. marginata -confirmed locations -Nigeria, Belgian Congo, Cameroon, Dahomey, Fernando Po, Gaboon, Equatorial Guinea, unconfirmed -Liberia, Ivory Coast.

Archachatina marginata var. ovum -confirmed locations -Nigeria, Ivory Coast

Archachatina marginata var. suturalis -confirmed locations, Dahomey, Nigeria, Cameroon, French Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Fernando Po, Sao Tome and Principe, Ivory Coast.

Archachatina marginata var. eduardi -confirmed locations, Cameroon, Fernando Po, Nigeria, unconfirmed- Ivory Coast.

Archachatina marginata var. egregiella -confirmed locations, Cameroon.

Archachatina marginata var. egregious -confirmed locations, Cameroon

Archachatina marginata var. clenchi -confirmed locations, Cameroon

Archachatina marginata var. grevillei -confirmed locations, Southern Nigeria

Archachatina marginata var. icterica -confirmed locations, Gaboon

Archachatina marginata var. candefacta -confirmed locations, Cameroon,

Archachatina bicarinata -confirmed locations, Sao Tome Island.
Archachatina camerunensis -confirmed locations, ?*1
Archachatina papyracea -confirmed locations, Cameroon
Archachatina puylaerti -confirmed locations, Togo, Benin.
Archachatina degneri -confirmed locations, Ghana.,Dahomey
Archachatina gaboonensis -confirmed locations, Gaboon.
Archachatina rhodostoma -confirmed locations, Ivory Coast.
Archachatina purpurea -confirmed locations, Ivory Coast.
Archachatina ventricosa -confirmed locations, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra-Leone.
Achatina fulica -confirmed locations, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana.
Achatina glutinosa -confirmed locations, Democratic Republic of Congo (also Mozambique, E Africa)

Achatina Achatina -confirmed locations, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Togo, Dahomey, Ghana, Nigeria, Guinea*2

Achatina achatina ssp achatina f. depravata -confirmed locations, Ivory Coast.
Achatina albopicta-confirmed locations Coast of Kenya and Tanzania
Achatina balteata -confirmed locations, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, (also Angola, C.Africa),Sierra Leone
Achatina fulgurata -confirmed locations, Senegal
Achatina iostoma -confirmed locations, Cameroon
Achatina reticulata-confirmed locations Zanzibar
Achatina sylvatica -confirmed locations, Congo.
Achatina tincta -confirmed locations, Congo (also Angola, C.Africa)
Achatina weynsi -confirmed locations, Congo
Lignus intertinctus -confirmed locations, Ivory Coast. Liberia*2
Limicolaria flammea -confirmed locations, Guinea Bissau, Nigeria.,Sierra Leone
Limicolaria turris -confirmed locations, Guinea-Bissau*2
Limicolaria keniana -confirmed locations, [glow=red,2,300]Mt. Kenia[/glow]
Limcolaria saturata -confirmed locations, [glow=red,2,300]region of Lake Albert Edward, at 3000-4000 feet[/glow] (border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda)

Burtoa nilotica -confirmed locations, Democratic Republic of Congo.*2,Sudan


Key
yellow Text-information from a compendium of landshells-,R.T Abott
Red Text - Information from www.petsnails.co.uk
Blue Text - Information from confirmed imports of Snails
Orange Text - Information from www.malakos.com
Green Text - Information from Andreas Leiss.
Brown Text -Information from www.arnobrosi.com
Purple Text -Information from www.malacsoc.org.uk
Maroon Text - Information from shell.kwansei.ac.jp/~shell/pic_book/data51/r005002.html
White Text- Information from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achatinidae
White Text*2 -Information from Gonçalo Appleton F.
[glow=red,2,300]Glowing Red Text[/glow] -Information from Pilsbry, Henry. A Review of the Land Mollusks of the Begian Congo, chiefly based on the collections of the American Museum Congo Expedition, 1909-1915. AMNH Bulletin Vol. XL, art. 1, 1919.

*1- Known import from Cameroon?

EDIT:This information is now for all African snails, not just limited to West Africa.

[apple]

Lignus intertinctus is also found in Liberia.
Limicolaria turris - Guinea Bissau.
Spanish Guinea no longs exists, is Equatorial Guinea now.
Achatina achatina exists also in Guinea.
Burtoa nilotica- Democratic Republic of Congo.

If you want, put these updates.

[Kevin]

apple said:

Lignus intertinctus is also found in Liberia.
Limicolaria turris - Guinea Bissau.
Spanish Guinea no longs exists, is Equatorial Guinea now.
Achatina achatina exists also in Guinea.
Burtoa nilotica- Democratic Republic of Congo.

If you want, put these updates.

Thanks, ive updated the list.

[erica]

sorry if this is a stupid question - isn't this like the map at the top of the species page of petsnails? or is it more detailed than that?

[Kevin]

erica said:

sorry if this is a stupid question - isn't this like the map at the top of the species page of petsnails? or is it more detailed than that?

The map on petsnails isnt that complete, it has some inacuracies, is outdated, and doesnt have the full distribution of some of the species on it.

[Paul]

We are going to redo the whole map thing, and provide a map for each species like the one on the immaculata page and a larger, more general one that shows them all.

If you can add to the list, please do but to do this properly we need citations or evidence of there localities. Countries is a good start but also, more specific locations are also needed if possible. Often colonies of Achatinids are only found in specific spots. Easterm South Africa is covered thanks to the very specific colony location info in Dai Herberts and Dick Kilburn's book. I don't expect information of that accuracy but African countries are enormous and with very strange geography, as the degneri/puylaerti issue showed.

So, I think we need to be very careful about which info we choose to rely upon. As we have found out so often in the past with many things, information on the net propagates and gets copied and before long we assume them to be accurate because they appear on 4 out of 5 websites. We have had a multitude of examples of this with the species we keep.

I think we'll be forced to key the maps to show the reliability of the sources.