20. Melanoides tuberculata (O.F. Müller, 1774)

Distribution and year: Lake Ngami [SAMC2617, SAMC1617] 1880 (Connolly 1912; 1939; GBIF 2023 b); “Botletle” (Boteti) River N/A (Connolly 1912; 1939); “Makarrikarri” (Makgadikgadi) Pan N/A (Connolly 1912; 1939), 2016, 2017, 2019 (GBIF 2023 b).

Geographic range: Algeria, Botswana, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

Habitat: Freshwater.

Notes: The native range of this species is speculated to be subtropical and tropical Africa (excluding West Africa), Indo-Pacific region, south Asia as well as the Arabic region (Brown 1994). The species has a global distribution due to introductions into various parts of the world (Albrecht et al. 2018 f). Common in waterbodies such as rivers, lakes and dams, and capable of surviving higher salinity levels (Appleton & Miranda 2015).

Type locality: Coromandel Coast, south-eastern India (MÜller 1774) .

Sources: Connolly (1912: 264, as Melania tuberculata, also as a [sub]fossil record; 1939: 566–567); van Bruggen (1966 a: 109), Brown & Kristensen (1989: 19); Appleton & Miranda (2015: 128); GBIF (2023 b).

Conservation status: Least Concern.