Sinployea waipoua
Sinployea waipoua 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, thin, and fragile, ~ 2 mm wide (aperture partly broken) and ~ 1 mm high at three whorls, moderately finely ribbed, loosely coiled, narrowly umbilicate, and low spired. |
Distribution
New Zealand, North Island, Northland, Waipoua, and Tutamoe.
Habitat
Habitat information is available for the Tutamoe locality, where the species was found in mixed broadleaf/podocarp old growth forest litter at 596 m a.s.l. and near the type locality, where the species was found in leaf litter from under treeferns and nikau palms (Rhopalostylis sapida).
The name
After Waipoua Forest and in appreciation of Te Roroa iwi members for their kaitiakitanga and manākitanga (K.M. and D.J.R. were guided by Dawn Birch and Laurie Joseph around Maunganui Bluff and parts of Waipoua Forest).
Conservation
In>70 samples in Te Papa collections from Waipoua Forest, S. waipoua was found only once. Two more records were found in private collections from near Parakao and Tutamoe. As shown in Figures 2 and 16, it is likely that S. waipoua is a Waipoua-Tutamoe endemic, allopatric with the other Northland Sinployea species. Previous assessment had this species ranked as ‘Data Deficient’, with the qualifier ‘one locality’ (OL). A change in ranking to ‘Naturally Uncommon’, with the qualifiers ‘Data Poor: Size and Trend’ and ‘Biologically Sparse’ is suggested here.
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.