A Field Guide to the Snails of Lord Howe Island

12 Figure 3. Greybark / Blackbutt low closed forest. Image P. Gilmour. Habitat types Lord Howe Island is a volcanic island formed from eruptions that took place 6.9-6.3 million years ago. It lies on the Lord Howe Rise, part of a chain of seamounts extending from New Zealand to west of New Caledonia. The Lord Howe Rise makes up part of the microcontinent Zealandia. The flora and fauna of Lord Howe Island have their strongest connections with Australia, New Caledonia and New Zealand, as well as (to a lesser extent) other more distant Pacific Islands. The flora of Lord Howe Island can be divided into grasslands, heathlands, wetlands and rainforests. The vast majority of the endemic land snails are found in the rainforest regions, which cover much of the island. The lower slopes of the southern mountains and lowland regions of the island are vegetated with low to tall closed rainforest, dominated by Greybark and Blackbutt (Figure 3), Scalybark (Figure 4), Banyan and Kentia Palm (Figure 5), or a mixed canopy of these and other trees. On the summits and upper slopes of Mt Gower and Mt Lidgbird, the vegetation type is Oceanic Cloud Forest, a dwarf to low closed forest featuring Hotbark, Fitzgerald and Big Mountain Palm, with epiphytic ferns, orchids and mosses (Figure 6).