page_title: Kanab ambersnail
section_title: Taxonomy
hierarchical_section_title: Kanab ambersnail / Taxonomy
caption_attribution_description: English: Kanab Ambersnail, Oxyloma haydeni kanabensis, shown beside a dime (10¢ coin). Coin diameter: 18 mm, 0.71 in.
context_page_description: The Kanab ambersnail, scientific name Oxyloma haydeni kanabense or Oxyloma kanabense, is a critically endangered subspecies or species of small, air-breathing land snail, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusc in the family Succineidae, the amber snails. The common name of the amber snails is based on the shell, which is translucent and when empty usually resembles the color of amber.
  This species is endemic to the United States, specifically the state of Arizona and Utah, where it was first collected in the early 20th century. It has been listed as endangered on the United States Fish and Wildlife Service list of endangered species since 1991. In January 2020, the Trump Administration announced it plans to remove the Kanab ambersnail from the endangered species list.
  This snail lives in wetlands, springs, and seeps, and only two of its natural habitats are known to exist: Three Lakes, a meadow near Kanab, Utah, and Vasey's Paradise, a springs along the Colorado River within Grand Canyon National Park. In its natural habitat it is rather polyphagous, feeding mainly on bacteria, plants and fungi. It reproduces during the summer.
context_section_description: Specimens of the Kanab ambersnail were first collected in 1909 by James Ferriss from: "The Greens", 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) above Kanab, Utah on Kanab Wash, on a wet ledge among moss and Cypripediums. These specimens were originally thought to belong to the species Succinea hawkinsi.
  Pilsbry (1948) transferred these specimens to the genus Oxyloma and erected the subspecies kanabensis in the species haydeni for them. Arthur Clarke (1991) notes that Pilsbry’s decision to accord the Kanab ambersnail subspecific status was
  preliminary, and that, as Pilsbry himself noted, “its taxonomic status should be reevaluated.”
  Clarke (1991) and Shei K. Wu (Colorado Museum of Natural History, Boulder, Colorado, pers. comm. 1992, 1995) suggest that the Kanab ambersnail may deserve full species status. Earle Spamer (Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, pers. comm. 1994) stated that although current published mollusk checklists (Turgeon et al. 1988 and Groombridge 1993) treat the Kanab ambersnail at species level rather that as a subspecies, nonetheless, until the criteria are derived (and published) by which the taxon can be known to be a separate species, it should continue to be called by its original name, the one published by Pilsbry (1948): Oxyloma haydeni spp. kanabensis. Despite this, NatureServe does list this taxon as a species.
caption: An ambersnail crawls across a hand, next to a U.S. dime (18 mm / 0.7 in diameter).
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