''Ashfordia granulata'',

common name In biology, a common name of a taxon or organism (also known as a vernacular name, English name, colloquial name, country name, popular name, or farmer's name) is a name that is based on the normal language of everyday life; and is often contrast ...

the "silky snail", is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of medium-sized air-breathing

land snail A land snail is any of the numerous species of snail that live on land, as opposed to the sea snails and freshwater snails. ''Land snail'' is the common name for terrestrial gastropod mollusks that have shells (those without shells are known as ...

, a terrestrial

pulmonate Pulmonata or pulmonates, is an informal group (previously an order, and before that a subclass) of snails and slugs characterized by the ability to breathe air, by virtue of having a pallial lung instead of a gill, or gills. The group includ ...

gastropod The gastropods (), commonly known as snails and slugs, belong to a large taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, from freshwater, and from land. T ...

mollusk Mollusca is the second-largest phylum of invertebrate animals after the Arthropoda, the members of which are known as molluscs or mollusks (). Around 85,000 extant species of molluscs are recognized. The number of fossil species is e ...

in the family

Hygromiidae Hygromiidae is a taxonomic family of small to medium-sized air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the superfamily Helicoidea. Helicellidae Ihering, 1909 Anatomy Some snails in genera within this family create ...

, the hairy snails and their allies. This species is sometimes placed in the genus ''

Monacha ''Monacha'' is a genus of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks in the subfamily Trochulininae Lindholm, 1927 of the family Hygromiidae, the hairy snails and their allies. MolluscaBase eds. (2021). MolluscaBase. Mo ...

'' and known as ''Monacha granulata''.

Distribution

This species is known to occur mainly in: * Ireland *

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

, England with small populations in: * France * Spain

Description

The 5-7 × 7-9 mm shell is whitish to pale brown and thin, translucent, with fine straight hairs with bulbous bases. There are 5.5-6 convex

whorls A whorl ( or ) is an individual circle, oval, volution or equivalent in a whorled pattern, which consists of a spiral or multiple concentric objects (including circles, ovals and arcs). Whorls in nature File:Photograph and axial plane floral d ...

with deep suture. The

aperture In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. More specifically, the aperture and focal length of an optical system determine the cone angle of a bundle of rays that come to a focus in the image plane. An opt ...

is simple with a thin lip or without a lip . It is reflected only at the columellar side. The umbilicus is very narrow and partly covered by the reflected columellar margin. The

mantle A mantle is a piece of clothing, a type of cloak. Several other meanings are derived from that. Mantle may refer to: *Mantle (clothing), a cloak-like garment worn mainly by women as fashionable outerwear **Mantle (vesture), an Eastern Orthodox ve ...

is with black spots. AshfordiaGranulataInTaylor

Life cycle

The size of the egg is 1 mm.Heller J.: ''Life History Strategies''. in Barker G. M. (ed.):
The biology of terrestrial molluscs
'. CABI Publishing, Oxon, UK, 2001, . 1-146, cited page: 428.

References

External links

''Ashfordia granulata''
at Animalbase taxonomy,short description, distribution, biology,status (threats), images
Image from Habitas
Hygromiidae Gastropods described in 1830 {{Hygromiidae-stub