The visually striking “Yates’ Sultana Snail” is characterised by an elongate shell with various degrees of sinuous axial patterning crossed by up to four spiral bands, and is one of a number of charismatic Sultana snails endemic to the central Andes in South America. It is currently considered to be a species with very variable shell colouration and patterning, both within and among populations or specific localities. The base colouration ranges from yellowish to reddish to purplish, and the development of both axial and spiral patterning also appears to be very variable (though specimens from the same locality do tend to be more similar). The specimen shown has an exceptional pattern with continuous bright yellow axial streaks on very dark spiral bands, a very similar specimen won the Shell of the Show at the 2019 Paris Shell Show.

Originally described in the genus Bulimus, its type material is currently housed in the Natural History Museum, London. The type locality was given as “Meobamba, Eastern Peru”, taken to mean Moyobamba in San Martín Department. In the original description Pfeiffer did not mention the number of specimens examined, and the name-bearing type was unclear. Later in 1985, Breure and Schouten selected a specimen figured in Pfeiffer’s description as the lectotype; two paralectotypes are now known from the Hugh Cuming collection. A number of similar species described later, including Porphyrobaphe latevittata Shuttleworth, 1856, P. sublabeo Ancey 1890, P. grandis Rolle 1902, and P. sarcostoma Ancey, 1903 have now been formally synonymised with S. yatesi (by Richardson, 1993) on the basis that they have very similar shell shapes and that their colourful patterning consists of similar basic elements. Sultana vicaria (Fulton, 1896) was once also synonymised with S. yatesi by Richardson, but was later rehabilitated by Breure & Avila in 2016 due to its stouter shell and uniform colouration. The taxon Sultana galactostoma (Ancey, 1890) also has a similar shell shape to S. yatesi (but with whitish yellow colouration instead of colourful patterns) and it has been treated as a subspecies of S. yatesi, as S. y. galactostoma, by some authors. However, it has recently become clear that it is only definitively known from Ecuador with the records from Peru being erroneous; suggesting that it may be more appropriately treated as a separate full species afterall. Clearing up the true relationship among these taxa requires future anatomical and genetic evidences. Under the current definition, the range of S. yatesi spans across two Departments of Peru, namely Amazonas and San Martín, in high mountanous areas around +1000~2000 m in elevation; if S. y. galactostoma is considered as a subspecies then this extends the range of the species into Ecuador.

Typical shell length around 80 mm, extremely large specimens may exceed 100 mm. Although used to be extremely scarce, a recent surge in the supply of Peruvian orthalicid snails rendered S. y. yatesi relatively easy to obtain today. Nevertheless, since it is a very variable species prone to scarring, high-quality specimens with striking patterns are still highly sought-after by collectors.

It was named after a Mr. Yates who provided the material for its description. Today it is often listed under the subgenus Metorthalicus, for which it is the type species. In the past some authors have placed it under the genus Porphyrobaphe, although this is now no longer accepted and that genus is considered to be restricted to a group of species inhabiting Colombia and Ecuador. – Adapted from Chong Chen’s post

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Sultana yatesi – Beautiful!

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Sultana yatesi – Beautiful!

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Sultana yatesi – Exceptional pattern!

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Sultana yatesi – Exceptional pattern!

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Sultana yatesi – Large & Exceptional!

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Sultana yatesi – large size specimen in good quality!

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Sultana yatesi – Nice quality and pattern!

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Sultana yatesi – Superb pattern!

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Sultana yatesi – Superb pattern!

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Sultana yatesi – Superb pattern!