Sinployea maitai
Sinployea maitai was named in 2025 by Frank Climo, Karin Mahlfeld and David Roscoe, in their revision of the genus Sinployea. It belongs to the Charopidae: mostly tiny, finely ribbed snails of forest litter, and the largest family of New Zealand land snails.
| Family | Charopidae |
| Authority | Climo, Mahlfeld & Roscoe, 2025 |
| Threat status | Proposed in 2025, see Conservation below |
| Shell | Shell small, depressed subglobose, thin, and fragile, 3.6 mm wide and 1.3 mm high at four whorls, coarsely ribbed and moderately tightly coiled for the group. |
Distribution
South Island, Nelson, Richmond, and Bryant Ranges.
Habitat
Unknown.
The name
The species is named after Maitai Cave, Bryant Range, Nelson.
Conservation
The known range of S. maitai spans a distance of ~ 35 km along the western edge of the Richmond State Forest Park. More than 70 collection events are recorded from map sheet N28, which includes Wairoa Gorge based on Te Papa collection records, but only one sample from Pig Valley contained S. maitai. Of the 60 collection events from the Bryant Range, 32 are from Maitai Valley and 27 from Maitai Cave, but only 2 samples contained shells of S. maitai. In total, 114 samples are recorded in Te Papa terrestrial molluscs collection from O27 (Fig. 2). It is likely that S. maitai is a western Richmond Range/Bryant Range endemic, and therefore we suggest ranking this species as ‘At Risk: Naturally Uncommon’, with the qualifiers ‘Data Poor: Size and Trend’ and ‘Biologically Sparse’ until new information becomes available. This species has not been collected by us since the mid-1980s. The 2010 NZTCS assessment ranked this species as ‘At Risk: Naturally Uncommon’, with the qualifier ‘RR’ (Range Restricted).
Sources
- Described in: Mahlfeld, K., Climo, F. & Roscoe, D. (2025). Systematics, conservation status, and biogeography of 16 new species of Sinployea Solem, 1983 (Gastropoda: Charopidae) from New Zealand. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 204(1). Publication details
- Treatment on Plazi (CC0). Distribution, habitat, name and conservation text are quoted from it.
This record was compiled from published, public data. A full factsheet for this species has not been written yet.