''Chytra kirki'' is a
species of
tropical freshwater snail
Freshwater snails are gastropod mollusks which live in fresh water. There are many different families. They are found throughout the world in various habitats, ranging from ephemeral pools to the largest lakes, and from small seeps and springs ...
with an
operculum,
aquatic 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 in the family
Paludomidae.
''Chytra kirki'' is the only species in the genus ''Chytra''.
The
specific name Specific name may refer to:
* in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database
In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules:
* Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...
''kirki'' is in honor of explorer
John Kirk (1832-1922), who has donated various other specimen of snails (not this species) to the
Natural History Museum.
[ Smith E. A. (1881). "On a collection of shells from lakes Tanganyika and Nyassa and other localities in East Africa". '' Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London'' 1881]
276
300
Plate 33
figure 18-18b.
Distribution
This species is found in
Burundi
Burundi (, ), officially the Republic of Burundi ( rn, Repuburika y’Uburundi ; Swahili language, Swahili: ''Jamuhuri ya Burundi''; French language, French: ''République du Burundi'' ), is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley at the ...
, the
Democratic Republic of the Congo,
Tanzania, and
Zambia.
The
type locality
Type locality may refer to:
* Type locality (biology)
* Type locality (geology)
See also
* Local (disambiguation)
* Locality (disambiguation)
{{disambiguation ...
is
Lake Tanganyika
Lake Tanganyika () is an African Great Lake. It is the second-oldest freshwater lake in the world, the second-largest by volume, and the second-deepest, in all cases after Lake Baikal in Siberia. It is the world's longest freshwater lake. ...
.
Description
The shell is solid, trochiform and dirty whitish in color.
The
spire is acutely conical.
The shell has 6 or 7 feebly concave
whorls.
They are bearing arcuate and flexuous lines of growth and six or seven granulous lirae, whereof that immediately above the
suture is the largest.
The
body whorl
The body whorl is part of the morphology of the shell in those gastropod mollusks that possess a coiled shell. The term is also sometimes used in a similar way to describe the shell of a cephalopod mollusk.
In gastropods
In gastropods, the b ...
is acutely angular at the periphery, encircled by two subequal granular ridges.
The base is concave near the circumference, then slightly convex, concentrically granosely ridged.
The ridges nearest the umbilicus are coarser than the others, and also arcuately radiately striated.
The shell has deep and narrow
umbilicus.
The
aperture is irregularly subcircular and whitish.
The outer lip (viewed laterally) is obliquely incurved.
Basal and columellar margins are forming one strongly arcuate line joined above to the extremity of the labrum by a thickish callosity.
The width of the shell is 19 mm.
The height of the shell is 15 mm.
[Brown D. S. (1994). ''Freshwater Snails of Africa and their Medical Importance''. Taylor & Francis. .]
Ecology
Its natural
habitat is freshwater
lakes.
It is widespread
species in the Lake Tanganyika, but its distribution is patchy and with low numbers of snails.
It lives on the mud with much organic material in depths 10–20 meters.
There is possibility that it can live in depths up to 80 m.
References
This article incorporates public domain text from the reference
{{Taxonbar, from=Q308321
Paludomidae
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot