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Terrestrial
Gastropods of the Columbia Basin, British Columbia
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CIONELLIDAE Kobelt, 1880 Genus
Cionella Jeffreys, 1829 Cionella lubrica
(Müller, 1774): Glossy Pillar
Cionella lubrica 
Description: Shell small (height to 6.4
mm), subcylindrical, glossy, translucent and amber coloured; spire
tall and tapering; apex bluntly rounded and a little paler in colour
from the rest of the shell; whorls moderately convex and numbering
5.5; periphery rounded; suture deep and bordered by a more opaque
band; protoconch smooth; teleoconch very glossy and smooth, with only
very fine, weak axial striae; aperture subovate and without denticles;
outer lip with an opaque pinkish or whitish riblike thickening within;
umbilicus absent. Juveniles differ from adults in shape, have an angled periphery and lack the thickened rim inside the outer lip. Quick (1954) noted that the head, neck, sole and tail of specimens from England are dark grey or bluish-black. Similar species: Adults are easily distinguished from all other land snails in British Columbia by their very glossy, cigar-shaped shells, and by the uniquely thickened outer lip. Habitat: Cionella lubrica is a common snail in urban and agricultural areas and less frequent in natural areas. It lives in moist places under logs, rocks, leaf litter, living vegetation and miscellaneous debris. Caesar (1946) reported hundreds of individuals congregating on an old concrete house foundation at Okanagan Centre, near Vernon. Range: Holarctic. Point Barrow, Alaska to Mexico and east to Labrador and Washington, D.C. (Pilsbry 1948); Europe and North Africa east to Siberia, China and Japan (Dall 1905, Habe 1964, Kerney & Cameron 1979); Cape Verde Islands and the Azores (Backhuys 1975). Introduced to Madeira (Cameron & Cook 1996), New Zealand (Barker 1982), Venezuela (Adam 1960, Backhuys 1975) and South Africa (van Bruggen 1980). Distribution: Widespread in British Columbia but more common in the south near human settlement. Although native, Cionella lubrica is often associated with and dispersed by human activity (Roth & Pearce 1984). The majority of the Columbia Basin records are from sites that are humanly disturbed. Name: Genus name meaning a "little pillar". Species name meaning "slippery", which aptly describes the difficulty often encountered when picking up this snail. Records: Creston Valley Wildlife Management Area (49°07.19'N, 116°37.82'W) (RBCM 998-00282-001); Creston Valley Wildlife Management Area (49°07.34'N, 116°37.24'W) (RBCM 998-00264-006); McDonalds Landing, West Arm, Kootenay Lake, near Six Mile, NE of Nelson (49°34.75'N, 117°12.99'W) (Forsyth Coll. 97-094-1081); E shore of Kootenay Lake, near boat launch S of ferry, Kootenay Bay (49°40.4'N, 116°52.3'W) (Forsyth Coll. 97-097-1095); Kaslo (49°55'N, 116°55'W) (Staatliches Museum fur Naturkunde Görlitz); N end of Trout Lake, E of Upper Arrow Lake (50°38.75'N, 117°32.32'W) (RBCM 998-00285-002); along Hwy 1, at junction with Hwy 23, W of Revelstoke (51°0.2'N, 118°13.4'W) (Forsyth Coll. 98-096-3318); Hunter Creek Forest Recreation Site, along Kicking Horse River, ESE of Golden (51°15.95'N, 116°44.69'W) (Forsyth Coll. 98-092-3296); Dogtooth Forest Service Road near bridge over Columbia River, Golden (51°18.7'N, 116°59.5'W) (Forsyth Coll. 98-093-3056). View the map. |
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BC Museum |
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