Land Snails from Mothe, Lakemba, and Karoni Islands, Lau Archipelago, Fiji

Abstract

Land snails sorted from bagged leaf litter on Karoni, Lakemba, and Mothe Islands in the Lau Archipelago of Fiji numbered 35 species. Literature and Field Museum of Natural History collection records add four others for a total of39 species. There are now 13 recorded from Mothe, 20 from Karoni, and 22 from Lakemba. Nine of these taxa are introductions from outside the Pacific basin, dating from European commercial activities; three probably were introduced by Polynesian voyagers; and 27 probably are endemic to Lau. Many of the latter belong to widely distributed Pacific basin species complexes and cannot be assigned a specific name with certainty, but several are restricted to just one or two islands in Lau. The diversity of species on each island does not follow the species-area curve.