Favoritos de chilipossum

Round Mountain Road. Found crawling on the road at night following rains. A second individual was on a dirt bank in a small side gully near the road. This is near the type locality, and consists of grassy hills with soil derived from volcanic ash and sand.

Forms dense aggregations of shell-incrusted tubes about 5 mm diameter in sandy sediments on top of and between rocks in wave-protected, low intertidal habitat.

3rd image: hood of tube.
4th image: feeding tentacles extending from hood.
5th image: worm removed from tube (tube as shown 121 mm long, but probably missing part of posterior end)
6th image: close-up of worm
7th image: worm in MgCl2
8th image: detail of gills

Images 3-8 of worm collected from same locality on 20 January 2019.

Abundant along a small stretch of the stream coming from Point of Rocks Spring. Two snail species are endemic to this spring Tyronia elata and Pyrgulopsis erythropoma. Based on Hershler and Sada (1987), this snail is Pyrgulopsis erythropoma.

Hershler, R. and D. W. Sada. 1987. Springsnails (Gastropoda: Hydrobiidae) of Ash Meadows, Armagosa Basin, California-Nevada. Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington 100: 776-843.