31 Species Of SE Asian Snail, 10 Entirely New To Science, @ Least 1/3 Threatened Or Already Extinct

Plectostoma sinyumensis is listed by the IUCN as Near Threatened because one of the four limestone hills that this species inhabits is at risk of destruction from quarrying.

A team of Dutch and Malaysian scientists has recently completed one part of a taxonomic revision of Plectostoma, a genus of tiny land snails in Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, according to their article published recently in ZooKeys, it seems that these animals may be going extinct as fast as they are being discovered.

“Many of these species are in such dire straits,” said Menno Schilthuizen of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands and the Institute for Tropical Biology and Conservation in Malaysia, “some of them are literally going extinct in front of our eyes.” To classify the 214 samples of the genus Plectostoma (formerly a subgenus of Opisthostoma) the scientists used a micro-CT scanner to look at three-dimensional images of the internal structures of the snails’ shells. Along with DNA data, they were able to use these results to determine which populations belong to previously described species and which did not. This process led to the classification of 31 species, 10 of which were completely new to science.

The paper proposed conservation statuses for all 31 species of Plectostoma based on criteria that the IUCN uses to assess the viability of populations such as population size, rate of population decline, suspected population size reduction, and habitat fragmentation. These assessments and the authors’ categorizations are currently being submitted to the IUCN.

The authors suggest that 10 of the 31 species in the article are threatened, and one (P. sciaphilum) has already gone extinct.

EDIT

http://news.mongabay.com/2014/0603-mann-snails.html