The Hawaiian archipelago is the most isolated archipelago on Earth. Stretching 2,500 km across the Central Pacific it is 3,500 km from the nearest continental land mass. This isolation has contributed to the evolution of a unique terrestrial ecosystem comprised mostly of endemic species. So vast is the area of the archipelago and so high is the rate of endemicity that there is no other place on earth like it.
In spite of its isolation over millions of years representative species of 14 families of terrestrial and
freshwater snails reached the islands evolving into an endemic fauna of at least 749 described species, 345 described subspecies of those species and one endemic family.
Of those 14 families, two currently stand out as being extraordinarily successful, the Amastridae with 293 species and the Achatinellidae with 231 species. The whole diversity of the archipelago’s land snails is figured on 186 full-color plates, showing 3,117 images and 363 distribution maps.
Beside the plates and descriptions of the species the volume contains the following – more specialized – Addenda, all contributed by the book’s author MIKE SEVERNS:
Description of a New Species of Partulina (Baldwinia) from North Kohala, Hawaii
Description of a New Species of Partulina (s.s.) from a Fossil Deposit in the Waiehu Dunes, West Maui
A Reevaluation of the Taxonomic Status of Two Hawaiian Tree Snails Belonging to the Genus
Achatinella Erroneously Placed in the Genus Partulina
The genus Partulina (Gastropoda: Pulmonata: Achatinellidae) on the Island of Hawaii
A Reevaluation of the Taxonomic Status of Eight Taxa of Tree Snails of the Endemic Hawaiian Genus Partulina (s.s.) from West Maui
A Revision of the Taxonomic Status of Eight Taxa of Partulina (s.s.) from the Island of Maui and the Description of a New Subspecies
The U. S. Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842 undeniably marks the birth of Hawaiian marine
malacology. Based on the collections of JOSEPH P. COUTHOUY, no less than 62 species of Hawaiian marine and non-marine molluscs were described by AUGUSTUS A. GOULD.
However, it was the indefatigable curiosity of WILLIAM HARPER PEASE that definitively placed
Hawaii on the world map of malacology. PEASE arrived in Hawaii in 1850 at the age of 26. Between 1860 and his death in 1871 at the age of 47, he became the recognized authority on Polynesian molluscs, describing more than 300 species.
In 1979, ALISON KAY’S Hawaiian Marine Shells recorded 966 valid species of shelled molluscs. The present volume records 1333, i.e. an increment of 367 or 27.5 % in just 30 years. The inventory is thus far from saturated. The percentage of endemism for the marine snails is the highest recognized for any Pacific island group with an estimated endemicity of close to 21 %. The whole diversity of the archipelago’s sea shells – including polyplacophores, gastropods, bivalves, scaphopods as well as shelled cephalopods – is figured on 225 full-color plates with 2,828 images.
Beside the plates and descriptions of the species the volume contains the following – more specialized – Addenda:
R. M. FILMER – A New Conus Species from the Hawaiian Islands (Gastropoda: Conidae)
JOHN K. TUCKER, MANUEL J. TENORIO & HENRY W. CHANEY – A Revision of the Status of Several Conoid Taxa from the Hawaiian Islands: Description of Darioconus leviteni n. sp., Pionoconus striatus oahuensis n. ssp. and Harmoniconus paukstisi n. sp. (Gastropoda, Conidae)
FABIO MORETZSOHN – Study of the Hawaiian Nucleolaria (Gastropoda: Cypraeidae), with a
Description of Two New Species
RICHARD AARON SALISBURY – Nine New Hawaiian Costellariidae (Mollusca: Gastropoda)
ROLAND HOUART & CHRIS MOE – Description of Orania archaea hitomiae n. ssp. (Gastropoda:
Muricidae: Ergalataxinae) from Hawaii
DANIEL L. GEIGER – Anatoma emilioi, a New Species of Anatomidae MCLEAN, 1989 from the
Hawaiian Islands
LINDSEY T. GROVES – Fossil Marine Molluscs of the Hawaiian Islands