Favoritos de chilipossum

I was looking for the near-mythical Helminthoglypta liodoma near the Kern River, but found instead Helminthoglypta cypreophila kernensis. Heavily malleated shell like Southern Shoulderband. In fact, this snail was first described by Berry as a subspecies of Southern Shoulderband. Also at the site were shells of Helminthoglypta berryi, but I was unable to find a live one. I returned at night but was kicked out by a security guard who was probably employed to protect the nearby solar array, but was adamant that the entire area is under his protection. I also searched the nearby type locality for H. berryi but found no shells and no snails. This is on the road up to Round Mountain through abandoned oil fields and grazing land, and everything was fenced so I was restricted to the road berms.

Round Mountain Road. Found crawling on the road at night following rains. A second individual was on a dirt bank in a small side gully near the road. This is near the type locality, and consists of grassy hills with soil derived from volcanic ash and sand.

Forms dense aggregations of shell-incrusted tubes about 5 mm diameter in sandy sediments on top of and between rocks in wave-protected, low intertidal habitat.

3rd image: hood of tube.
4th image: feeding tentacles extending from hood.
5th image: worm removed from tube (tube as shown 121 mm long, but probably missing part of posterior end)
6th image: close-up of worm
7th image: worm in MgCl2
8th image: detail of gills

Images 3-8 of worm collected from same locality on 20 January 2019.

Abundant along a small stretch of the stream coming from Point of Rocks Spring. Two snail species are endemic to this spring Tyronia elata and Pyrgulopsis erythropoma. Based on Hershler and Sada (1987), this snail is Pyrgulopsis erythropoma.

Hershler, R. and D. W. Sada. 1987. Springsnails (Gastropoda: Hydrobiidae) of Ash Meadows, Armagosa Basin, California-Nevada. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 100: 776-843.