Pomacea maculata Perry, 1810

Ng, Ting Hui, Jeratthitikul, Ekgachai, Sutcharit, Chirasak, Chhuoy, Samol, Pin, Kakada, Pholyotha, Arthit, Siriwut, Warut, Srisonchai, Ruttapon, Hogan, Zeb S. & Ngor, Peng Bun, 2020, Annotated checklist of freshwater molluscs from the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, ZooKeys 958, pp. 107-141 : 107

Pomacea maculata Perry, 1810 Fig. 5D

Pomacea maculata Perry, 1810: unnumbered plate and text. Type locality: Paraná, Argentina (see discussion in Hayes et al. 2012).

Material examined.

CIFI.MOL.037, ZRC.MOL.015691, ZRC.MOL.015695, ZRC.MOL.015692, ZRC.MOL.015693, ZRC.MOL.015694.

Distribution and habitat.

Tonle Sap River and Lake, and paddy fields in Banteay Meanchey and Kampong Thom Provinces (locality no. 1, 2, 5, 7, 15, 22, 38, 40, and 44).

Remarks.

Unlike Pila species, Pomacea maculata is not native to Southeast Asia. Pomacea maculata (as Pomacea insularum d’Orbigny, 1835 in Hayes 2008), and another species, Pomacea canaliculata (Lamarck, 1822), have both been introduced to Asia from South America ( Hayes et al. 2012; Joshi et al. 2017). Molecular methods are the most accurate way to distinguish between them (Rama Rao et al. 2018), and DNA barcodes of two individuals from the Tonle Sap basin were a match to Pomacea maculata (GenBank Accession No. MT372328, MT372329). Because of the morphological similarity between the two species, some records of Pomacea canaliculata in Southeast Asia, including in Cambodia, may instead have been of Pomacea maculata (see Cowie and Hayes 2012). Pomacea species were first recorded in Cambodia only in the mid-1990s (compared to early 1980s in neighbouring Thailand), and even then, had only been collected from three localities ( Cowie 1995). From then onwards, Pomacea spp. may have spread because these snails were mistaken for native ampullariids and were translocated to paddy fields in attempts to breed them for food - unfortunately, Pomacea spp. became pests that destroyed the crops instead ( Khay et al. 2018). At present, Pomacea maculata appears to be widespread in the Tonle Sap basin.

Figures

Figure 5. Freshwater gastropods of the Tonle Sap basin, Cambodia A Pila gracilis B Pila pesmei C Pila virescens D Pomacea maculata E Filopaludina martensi cambodjensis F Idiopoma umbilicata G Mekongia rattei H Trochotaia trochoides I Bithynia siamensis goniomphalus J Wattebledia siamensis K Anentome cambojiensis L Anentome helena M Sulcospira housei N Melanoides tuberculata O Indoplanorbis exustus and P Radix rubiginosa. Scale bars: 10 mm, unless stated otherwise. Photographs by TH Ng.