Habitat

The Patera leatherwoodi's type locality, a place where a certain species is found, is western Travis County, Texas (Pratt, 1971).  The Patera leatherwoodi is also found in the Pedernales Falls State Park, Blanco County, identified in the map below (Kaufman, 1974).  This locality of the Patera leatherwoodi actually lead to its common name, the Pedernales oval (Encyclopedia of Life).  It is believed that these are the only two places this snail exists (Kaufman, 1974).  The snail's presence in only the Pedernales falls region and its type locality in Travis county suggests that it needs a fairly specific habitat.

Some of the physical environmental factors that are included in the P. leatherwoodi's  habitat are a rocky terrain, shady places, and an area that is very moist (Hubricht, 1985).  While not much else is known about the P. leatherwoodi's habitat requirements much of it can be inferred based on the type locality.  As Hubricht suggested the snails require a very moist environment which agrees with the falls and river being its only location.  Also, like many falls the Pedernales Falls is very rocky providing a lot of substrate for the snails to crawl on and not get washed down the river.  The falls area also happens to be lined with many trees providing shade for the snails (Hubricht, 1985).

One other note to make is how imperiled P. leatherwoodi is.  Since the snail only exists in two places that are a mere 13 miles apart, it is known that the P. leatherwoodi is a very rare species (Kaufman, 1974).  To measure how rare and how imperil species are a scale of critically imperiled (G1) to secure (G5) has been established (Perez, 2008).  A species in the G1 category is characterized as having five or less locations (Perez, 2008).  Since the P. leatherwoodi is only located in these two locations it is categorized as critically imperil.

 

To learn about Patera leatherwoodi's Adaptations click here.