''Ayna'' is a monotypic genus of 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 ...

s, terrestrial

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 ...

mollusks in the family

Enidae Enidae is a family of air-breathing land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusks. MolluscaBase eds. (2020). MolluscaBase. Enidae B. B. Woodward, 1903 (1880). Accessed through: World Register of Marine Species at: http://www.marinespecies ...

. The sole species in the genus is ''Ayna mienisi''. It was described as ''Zebrina'' (''Ramusculus'') ''mienisi''. The genus '' Ramusculus'' however is a monotypic genus only distantly related to ''Ayna''. The closest relative of ''Ayna'' is probably '' Clausilioides''. ''A. mienisi'' is a chirally enantiomorphic species. This means that some specimens have sinistral (left-coiled), others dextral (right-coiled) shells. The sinistral and dextral specimens form "clear" populations but can by found

sympatric In biology, two related species or populations are considered sympatric when they exist in the same geographic area and thus frequently encounter one another. An initially interbreeding population that splits into two or more distinct species sh ...

ally as well. The sinistral specimens were described as a species (''Ramusculus laevitortus'' Schütt, 1995) differs from the dextral ''Ramusculus mienisi''. The species inhabits a relatively small area in Erzurum Province, northeastern Turkey.

References

Enidae Endemic fauna of Turkey Monotypic gastropod genera Gastropods described in 1986 {{Enidae-stub