Pila RöDING, 1798

Neubert, Eike & Damme, Dirk van, 2012, Palaeogene continental molluscs of Oman, Contributions to Natural History 20, pp. 1-28 : 4

Genus Pila RöDING, 1798

The genus recently occurs all over Africa from the Nile Delta to northern Mozambique and also in Madagascar, the Indo-Pacific islands and S. Asia including southern China and Japan ( Brown 1994). Recently some 30 species are known. Most Pila species live in swampy habitats such as floodplains and are able to aestivate in the mud during the dry season. The earliest African fossils date from the Lower Cretaceous of Niger, though it is impossible to ascertain if these belong to the genus Pila (Palaeotropical realm) or to the genus Pomacea PERRY, 1810 (Neotropical realm but presently introduced in N. America and S. Asia) or should be considered the ancestral stem of both taxa due to the near identical shell morphology. It is here assumed that the taxa had split in Eocene times.