Melanoides tuberculata (O.F. Müller, 1774 )

Schultheiss, Roland, Ndeo, Oscar Wembo, Malikwisha, Meni, Marek, Carina, Bössneck, Ulrich & Albrecht, Christian, 2011, Freshwater molluscs of the Eastern Congo: notes on taxonomy, biogeography and conservation, African Invertebrates 52 (2), pp. 265-284 : 271

Melanoides tuberculata (O.F. Müller, 1774)

Fig. 2D

Nerita tuberculata: O.F. Müller 1774: 191 . (Type locality: “ In littore Coromandel ”, India)

Taxonomic remarks: M. tuberculata is probably an aggregation of several species (e.g., Genner et al. 2007 b and references therein).As a taxonomic revision is beyond the scope of this paper, we here follow Mandahl-Barth (1954) and Brown (1994). Falkner (1991) suggested the correct species name to be tuberculatus due to the masculine gender of the genus name. Yet, the author of the genus (Oliver 1804) treated the gender as feminine (ibid.: 40) and hence the correct name is tuberculata (according to ICZN 30.1.4.4.).

Habitat description: We found this species in great abundance at every sampled locality at L. Edward as well as in the Semliki R.

Collecting sites: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.

IUCN Red List Category: Least Concern ( Madhyastha 2010).