While working recently on a gate at a Catoosa County cave, gate builder Kristen Bobo found a relict snail shell. Georgia Wildlife Resources Division biologist Jason Wisniewski, who was helping with the project to protect bats, recognized the species as the spiny riversnail (lo fluvialis).

The spiny riversnail had not been recorded before in Georgia and is historically known only from Alabama, Tennessee and Virginia. The species is not federally protected but is listed as endangered on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List.