First Record of the Exotic Mollusk Ovachlamys fulgens in Rio Grande do Sul

On April 7th, I went on a trail in the local park with the aim of documenting bryophytes, a group for which I have few records and would like to study further. Branches fall from trees with various epiphytes that are commonly difficult to reach and take good photographs of, and my idea was to take advantage of these fallen branches to document the bryophytes.

I found some branches in great condition and, recognizing the species, took photographs. On the abaxial part of some leaves of Ilex paraguariensis, I found a mollusk, which I took the opportunity to document.

I did not recognize the species, and when registering it on the Inaturalist platform, the genus Ovachlamys was suggested by artificial intelligence. I used the suggestion from artificial intelligence as an initial identification. A few minutes later, Daniel Cavallari identified the specimen as Ovachlamys fulgens. I noticed that the platform listed this species as exotic to Brazil and that it was the only observation in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul.

I decided to investigate if this species had already been recorded in this state and conducted a search on Google Scholar. One of the first results was a recent article on the known distribution of this species in Brazil. Rosa et al., 2022 had no evidence of this species for Rio Grande do Sul and placed the southern boundary of the species in the state of Santa Catarina.

Thus, this record becomes the first known evidence of the exotic species Ovachlamys fulgens in the state of Rio Grande do Sul.

Bibliography:

Rosa, R.M.; Salvador, R.B.; Teixeira, L.; Bornschein, M.R.; Cavallari, D.C. The rapid expansion of the jumping snail Ovachlamys fulgens in Brazil. Diversity 2022, 14, 815.

Posted on April 8, 2024 07:52 PM by regisrafael