Helicina guppyi is a species of tropical land snail with an operculum, a terrestrial gastropod mollusk in the family Helicinidae.
Shell description The species is smaller and lower-spired than the other Dominican Helicina species, and always has a dull brown colour, a paler aperture and a hairy periostracum; ‘covered with a velvety epidermis’, weakly keeled, with a columellar denticle. Its size is 5-8.5 mm.
Distribution This species lives in Guadeloupe, Dominica and in Martinique.
This is the most common of the helicinids in Dominica, but generally restricted to the leeward side of the island.
Taxonomy Robert John Lechmere Guppy (1868)Guppy R. J. L. (1868). "On the terrestrial mollusks of Dominica and Grenada, with an account of some new species from Trinidad". Annals and Magazine of Natural History (4)1: 429-442. described two taxa from Dominica based on shell variation within this species; both names were preoccupied. William Harper Pease (1871) provided a substitute name in his treatment of Indo-Pacific species. This species was placed in the subgenus Striatemoda by Horace Burrington Baker (1940)Baker H. B. (1940). "Striatemoda, new subgenus of Alcadia (?), type of A. (Emoda?) striata (Lamarck), from Puerto Rico". Nautilus 54: 71. based on Guppy’s (1868) comparison with the Puerto Rican Alcadia subfusca (Menke, 1828), and also on Pilsbry’s (1892)Pilsbry H. A. (1892). "On a collection of land Mollusca from the Island of Dominica, West Indies". Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Science 8: 356-358. erroneous placement of this species with the Hispaniolan Alcadia rufa (L. Pfeiffer, 1857). There is expected the forthcoming revision of the Lesser Antillean Helicinidae by Ira Richling (from Kiel, Germany).
Ecology This species is usually collected on the trunks of trees, where it is well camouflaged on tree bark, or among detritus and leaves on the ground.
References This article incorporates CC-BY-3.0 text from the reference.