Fred Naggs

Natural History Museum, London

The superfamily Helicoidei are a widely distributed and diverse infraorder of land snails and slugs. Here, we constructed a phylogenetic tree based on sequences of the large subunit ribosomal RNA gene to investigate the relationships within the Helicoidei. Based on our phylogenetic tree, the family Camaenidae, as currently recognized, is not monoph...

Native to East Africa, the giant African snail Lissachatina [=Achatina] fulica (Bowdich, 1822) is a tropical crop pest and one of the world’s top 100 invasive species. It is now present in at least 52 countries worldwide, with an actively expanding range. Lissachatina fulica was first introduced to India in 1847, but subsequent arrivals in India an...

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-N.C. 4.0 International https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ Megataxa 007 (1): 085-112 h t t p s : / / w w w. m a p r e s s. c o m / m t Abstract The remit of the Natural History Museum, London, encompasses the whole of the natural world and places it at the forefront of global concerns about...

Interview with Planet Custodian at: https://www.planetcustodian.com/interview-with-british-malacologist-fred-naggs-on-wildlife-conservation/24744/

The giant African snail Lissachatina fulica (Bowdich, 1822) is reported as a pest in rubber plantations adjoining forest fringes in the Western Ghats region of Kerala. The snail was causing damage to rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) and nutmeg (Myristica fragrans) trees, by feeding on rubber latex and nutmeg twigs and leaves. L. fulica infestation on M....

The type species of the assimineid genus Acmella W.T. Blanford, 1869 is Cyclostoma tersum Benson, 1853, originally described from ‘Musmai’ [Mawsmai], Meghalaya, Northeast India. No specimens from Benson’s type series can be traced, and contemporary shells collected from the type locality in museum collections are extremely worn. It has therefore be...

A joint expedition between the Natural History Museum, London and Vietnamese colleagues discovered living populations of the charismatic tree snail, Amphidromus (Amphidromus) cambojiensis (Reeve, 1860 Reeve L. 1860. On two new species of shells from Cambojia. Ann Mag Nat Hist, Ser 3. 6:203–204. doi:10.1080/00222936008697308.[Taylor & Francis Online...

The rapidly spreading Giant African Snail Lissachatina [=Achatina] fulica (Bowdich, 1822) has been introduced to many parts of the world since the 1800s and is one of the world’s most invasive species. We compared cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) sequences from four invasive ranges: India, United Arab Emirates (UAE), China and West Africa. Sixtee...

Southeast Asia boasts a high diversity of carnivorous terrestrial snails in the family Streptaxidae. Six genera are now recognized in this region, mainly classified by the traditional characters of shell morphology, especially the configuration of the apertural dentition and eccentric shell shape. More recently, genital characters have been used to...

The endemic biotas of oceanic islands were vulnerable and many have been lost. The more ancient, complex and dynamic biotas of continents were more resilient but are now being obliterated. Sumatra and Madagascar are large continental plate islands with very different histories and biotas that exemplify the situation on continental land masses. Both...

Since the time of the original description there have been no precise locality records in Cambodia of Bertia cambojiensis (Reeve, 1860) and it was believed to be extinct. In 2012, a joint Natural History Museum survey with Vietnamese colleagues rediscovered living populations of this huge sinistral helicoid snail in a protected area of southern Vie...

Limestone karsts can form terrestrial habitat islands for calcium-dependent organisms. In Vietnam, many karst habitats are threatened, while their rich biodiversity is still far from being thoroughly explored. Given that conservation of karst biota strongly relies on correct species identification, the presence of undetected cryptic species can pos...

Here, the clarification of the “type” status for Cyclophorus (Glossostylus) koboensis Godwin-Austen, 1915 catalogued by Nantarat et al. (2014) is corrected and briefly discussed.

Recent conceptual and practical advances in phylogenetic species delimitation have enabled progressively robust biodiversity studies. Delimiting species in widespread taxa is an intriguing problem; the edible operculated land snail Cyclophorus volvulus (Müller, 1774) is a good example since it shows a high degree of shell and color variation along...

The insular limestone karsts of northern Vietnam harbor a very rich biodiversity. Many taxa are strongly associated with these environments, and individual species communities can differ considerably among karst areas. The exact processes that have shaped the biotic composition of these habitats, however, remain largely unknown. In this study, the...

This is the first part of the revision of the Alycaeidae of China, Laos and Vietnam. Here we revise the species hitherto classified in Chamalycaeus Möllendorff, 1897 (genera Dicharax and Metalycaeus in this study). We show that no Chamalycaeus live in the region, and the alycaeid species of the investigated region can be classified into five genera...

Indian summer monsoon (ISM) rainfall lasts for a period of four months with large variations recorded in terms of rainfall intensity during its period between June to September. Proxy reconstructions of past ISM rainfall variability are required due to the paucity of long instrumental records. However, reconstructing sub-seasonal rainfall is extrem...

This paper deals with the taxonomy and faunistics of the genus Diplommatina in Nepal. Altogether 16 species are reported, seven of which are new to science viz. D. abiesiana sp. nov., D. fistulata sp. nov., D. godawariensis sp. nov., D. maipokhariensis sp. nov., D. salgharica sp. nov., D. shivapuriensis sp. nov. and D. syabrubesiensis sp. nov. Info...

This study presents a multi-gene phylogenetic analysis of the Achatinoidea and provides an initial basis for a taxonomic revaluation of family level groups within the superfamily. A total of 5028 nucleotides from the nuclear rRNA, actin and histone 3 genes and the 1st and 2nd codon positions of the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene...

Eleven species of Glessulinae belonging to the genera Glessula Martens, 1860 (three species) and Rishetia Godwin-Austen, 1920 (eight species) are reported from Nepal, six of which are new to science and are described here, viz., G. tamakoshi Budha & Backeljau, sp. n., R. kathmandica Budha & Backeljau, sp. n., R. nagarjunensis Budha & Naggs, sp. n.,...

The global scale and impact of current and increasing human population size is incompatible with the survival of biological diversity and the 6th mass extinction cannot be stopped. For the vast majority of species we have neither the knowledge of when they will go extinct nor the capacity to find out. Conventional conservation measures can only amo...

The global scale and impact of current and increasing human population size is incompatible with the survival of biological diversity and the 6th mass extinction cannot be stopped. For the vast majority of species we have neither the knowledge of when they will go extinct nor the capacity to find out. Conventional conservation measures can only amo...

Journal of Population and Sustainability Vol 1 No 2. Papers by: GRAEME MAXTON AND JORGEN RANDERS - Solving the Human Sustainability Problem in Short-Termist Societies. ELIZABETH CRIPPS - Population, Climate Change, and Global Justice: A Moral Framework for Debate. JOHN CLELAND - Prospects for Accelerated Fertility Decline in Africa. NIKI RUST AND L...

The land-snail genus Corilla is endemic to Sri Lanka and India’s Western Ghats. The ten extant Sri Lankan species belong to two distinct shell forms that are associated respectively with lowland and montane rainforest. We here present the first molecular phylogenetic analysis for Corilla. Our dataset includes nine nominal Sri Lankan species and is...

The operculum of terrestrial snails tightly seals the shell aperture providing protection from predators and body-water loss. To allow respiration with a closed operculum, operculate land snails repeatedly evolved shell devices such as tubes or channels that open to the air. In all Asian members of the Alycaeidae, an externally closed tube lies alo...

All known taxa of the genus Endothyrella Zilch, 1960 (family Plectopylidae) are reviewed. Altogether 23 Endothyrella species are recognized. All species are illustrated and whenever possible, photographs of the available type specimens are provided. Five new species are described: E. angulata Budha & Páll-Gergely, sp. n., E. dolakhaensis Budha & Pá...

This is the very first checklist of the terrestrial gastropods of Nepal. It includes 138 species and six subspecies, of which 22 species are endemic and four are introduced. It highlights 34 species recorded for the first time in Nepal and provides new distribution records for another 30 species.

The collection of the Southeast Asian tree snail genus Amphidromus Albers, 1850 at the Natural History Museum, London includes more than 100 lots of type specimens representing 85 name-bearing types, 9 paratypes and 6 paralectotypes, and one nomen nudum. Lectotypes are here designated for A. cambojien-sis, A. perakensis globosus, A. columellaris gl...

Vietnamese species from the family Plectopylidae are revised based on the type specimens of all known taxa, more than 600 historical non-type museum lots, and almost 200 newly-collected samples. Altogether more than 7000 specimens were investigated. The revision has revealed that species diversity of the Vietnamese Plectopylidae was previously over...

The Western Ghats, the mountain chain running along the western coastline of India, has a phylogenetically-diverse land-snail fauna dominated by endemic species. Although this fauna was well studied in British colonial times, little revisionary taxonomic research has been carried out since the publication of the three volumes of The Fauna of Britis...

The Giant African Land Snail, Achatina ( = Lissachatina) fulica Bowdich, 1822, is a tropical crop pest species with a widespread distribution across East Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the Pacific, the Caribbean, and North and South America. Its current distribution is attributed primarily to the introduction of the snail to new a...

The collection of land caenogastropod snails in the genus Cyclophorus Monfort, 1810 housed in the Natural History Museum, London (NHM), includes 52 type lots. Lectotypes have been designated for 43 available species-level names to stabilize existing nomenclature, two previously designated lectotype, two holotypes, one paratype, one syntype, one pos...