The cylindrical lioplax is distinguished from other viviparid (eggs hatch internally and the young are born as juveniles) snails in the Mobile River Basin by the number of whorls, and differences in size, sculpture, microsculpture, and spire angle.

No other species of lioplax snails are known to occur in the Mobile River Basin (see Clench and Turner, 1955[4] for a more detailed description).

[4] A single collection of this species has also been reported from the Tensas River, Madison Parish, Louisiana;[5] however, there are no previous or subsequent records outside of the Alabama-Coosa system, and searches of the Tensas River in Louisiana by Service biologists (1995) and others[6] (Vidrine, 1996) have found no evidence of the species or its typical habitat.

The cylindrical lioplax is currently known only from approximately 24 kilometers (km) (15 miles (mi)) of the Cahaba River above the Fall Line in Shelby and Bibb counties, Alabama.

It lives in isolated mud deposits found under large rocks in the rapid flowing sections of stream and river shoals.